The Environmental Legacy of Russian Invasion of Ukraine Will Take Years to Clean Up

Apr 25, 2022 | Karen Graham
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Russia’s war in Ukraine is poisoning the soil, water, and the air, with environmental-health experts saying pollutants released by the continuing assault could take years to clean up while raising the risk of cancer and respiratory ailments as well as developmental delays in children, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Particularly worrisome is the damage to Ukraine’s nuclear plants. The country’s 15 active nuclear reactors could pose a danger not only in Ukraine but outside of its borders, Muffett says. “As we saw with the [1986] Chernobyl disaster, these impacts can last years to decades,” he tells NPR.org.

 “The environmental consequences of war are simply consequences in human impacts of war that can continue long after the shells have stopped exploding, long after the bullets and the guns have ceased,” Muffett says. 

It is difficult to wrap one’s mind around the hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and sulfur dioxide emitted from military vehicles, and other heavy machinery.