Ukraine: Ground Zero


Publisher: Al Jazeera

Author(s): Nick Lazaredes

Date: 2023

Topics: Assessment, Land, Renewable Resources

Countries: Russian Federation, Ukraine

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Ukraine is home to some of the most biodiverse and unique ecosystems on the planet, and its rich fertile plains provide food to the world. More than a year after Russia’s invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine, many of those ecosystems have been fragmented and reduced to ash, with vast tracts of forests destroyed, agricultural lands and soil contaminated, and rivers degraded. In the Black Sea, dolphins are washing up by the hundreds, harbingers of an impending environmental crisis brought about by war.

People and Power follows Ukrainian prosecutors and forensic investigators tasked by the government with building an environmental war crimes case against Russia as the ICC comes under increasing pressure to prosecute such alleged crimes.