https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6651-9062
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ABSTRACT
Unique within the recent history of environmental hazards, eastern Ukraine illustrates the dangers arising from conflict in an urban landscape heavily modified by human action (including coal extraction and nuclear testing) and requiring active management. To analyze these dynamics and their implications, we examine industrialization in the Donbas region and warfare-accelerated environmental risks. Using primary data and ethnographic interviewing, we compare responses by state and international institutions tasked with monitoring and environmental redress in the context of larger mandates, noting widespread shortfall. This article contributes to emergent environment and warfare related literature by exploring how actors with divergent goals coalesce in downgrading environmental concerns, despite increasing risks, motivation to assist, and widening impact across country and continental divides. Significant for the study of small wars, a lack of international political will for ‘forgotten conflicts’ increases the likelihood of shared environmental risks being treated as simply another policy item to be negotiated. However, environmental disasters routinely cross international borders and pose long-lasting, compounding harm to direct, indirect, and even uninvolved parties. Furthermore, such dynamics may increasingly characterize warfare as urbanization and industrialization continue their global spread, with active war-time environmental management ushering in profound challenges and new areas of needed expertise.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Oksana Yanchuk for her invaluable research and translational assistance; Dr. George Lopez (University of Notre Dame) for his review of an earlier version of this research project; and Nataliya Gumenyuk and Dr. Yevhen Yakovlev for investigative journalism and research contributions, respectively. The first author acknowledges generous funding support from the U.S. Fulbright program, Ukraine; the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows Program; the USAID Research and Innovation Program; and the University of Notre Dame’s Anthropology Department, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Kellogg Institute for International Development, and Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Galeotti, “Hybrid, Ambiguous, and Non-Linear.”
2. Ibid; see also, Dunn and Bobick, “Empire Strikes Back”; and Howard and Pukhov, Brothers Armed.
3. Ukraine Crisis Media Center, “Environmental Disaster in Crimea”; and UNIAN, “Klimkin.”
4. Ibid.
5. Mendel, “4,000 Children Flee Pollution”; and Ukraine Crisis Media Center, “Environmental Disaster in Crimea.”
6. UNIAN, “Donbas War Toll Rises.”
7. Despite significant efforts at deception, a substantial body of scholarly works, legal proceedings, and journalist findings demonstrate that eastern Ukrainian separatists receive technological, financial, military, and diplomatic support by the Russian Federation. See, Dunn and Bobick, “Empire Strikes Back”; Galeotti, “Hybrid, Ambiguous, and Non-Linear”; Maiorova, Donbas in Flames; Marten, “Russia’s Use of Semi-State”; Government of the Netherlands, “MH17”; and Walker, “New Evidence Emerges.”
8. Walker, “New Evidence Emerges”; and Galeotti, “Hybrid, Ambiguous, and Non-Linear.”
9. Shekinskaya, “Thousands of Ceasefire Violations.”
10. Government of the Netherlands, “MH17.”
11. Referring to a November 2018 incident in which Russian-flag bearing ships seized three Ukrainian naval vessels and 24 sailors, see, Reuters, “Russia Detained 24 Ukrainian.”
12. McCleary, “Russian Buildup Near Ukraine.”
13. Hook and Marcantonio, “War-Related Environmental Disaster”; Ramos and Kovalenko, “Implications of the War”; and Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas.
14. Hook and Marcantonio, “War-Related Environmental Disaster.”
15. Ibid.
16. Ryan and Bernard, “Data Management.”
17. Bernard, Wutich, and Ryan, Analyzing Qualitative Data.
18. Rigi, “War in Chechnya”; and Kim and Blank, “Insurgency and Counterinsurgency.”
19. Goldsmith and Horiuchi, “Impacts of Russian Interference”; and Brandt and Taussig, “Kremlin’s Disinformation Playbook.”
20. Hook, “Hybrid Warfare”; Marten, “Russia’s Use of Semi-State Security”; Harris, “Russia’s Fifth Column”; Johnson, “Hybrid Warfare”; and Swan, “State Report.”
21. Shakirova, Ramziya and Sally Stoecker. Environmental Crime and Corruption; Bridges and Bridges, Losing Hope; and Evans, “Protests and Civil Society.”
22. Charles, “Russia’s Forest Fires”; Plokhy, “Chernobyl”; Williams, “Radiation Carcinogenesis”; Nussbaum, “Chernobyl Nuclear Catastrophe”; and Vartanyan, “Some Ecological-Hydrogeological Lessons.”
23. Sterpu, “Frozen Conflict.”
24. Hook and Marcantonio, “War-Related Environmental Disaster”; and Maiorova, Donbas in Flames.
25. Ibid.
26. Hook and Marcantonio, “War-Related Environmental Disaster.”
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., 4.
29. Marten, “Russia’s Use of Semi-State Security.”
30. MENR, “Donbas Ecological Risks”; Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas; and Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), “Environmental Assessment.”
31. Ibid.
32. MENR, “Donbas Ecological Risks”; and Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas.
33. see note 26 above.
34. Dunn and Bobick, “Empire Strikes Back”; and Galeotti, “Hybrid, Ambiguous, and Non-Linear.”
35. Gumenyuk and Nazarov, “Donbas”; and Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas.
36. UNIAN, “Environmental Hazard.”
37. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Joint Convention.
38. See also, Hook and Marcantonio, “War-Related Environmental Disaster.”
39. MENR, “Donbas Ecological Risks”; Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas; Hook and Marcantonio, “War-Related Environmental Disaster”; and OSCE, “Environmental Assessment.”
40. MENR, “Donbas Ecological Risks”; Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas; and OSCE, “Environmental Assessment.”
41. Losh, “As Fighting Surges Again.”
42. Volker, “Special Session.”
43. Ibid.
44. MENR, “Donbas Ecological Risks”; Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas. Sampling data from both NGCA and GCA is also available by request from the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.
45. Gumenyuk and Nazarov, “Donbas: New Exclusion Zone”.
46. Ibid.
47. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “Aid in Support of Environment.”
48. E.g. Simon, “Stop to the Killing.”
49. See, Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, “Five Years of Fighting.”
50. Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas.
51. Dunn and Bobick, “Empire Strikes Back,” 405.
52. TASS, “Peskov Commented.”
53. Galeotti, “Hybrid, Ambiguous, and Non-Linear”; Government of the Netherlands, “MH17”; and Marten, “Russia’s Use of Semi-State Security.”
54. Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), “Environmental Assessment.”
55. Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas.
56. OSCE, “Environmental Assessment,” 14.
57. Hook and Marcantonio, “War-Related Environmental Disaster.”
58. TASS, “Peskov Commented”; and Maiorova, Donbas in Flames.
59. Rigi, “War in Chechnya.”
60. French, “Reappraisal of Sovereignty.”
61. Yakovlev and Chumachenko, Ecological Threats in Donbas.
62. Landrigan et al., “Lancet Commission.”
63. NIC, “Implications for U.S. National Security”; and Steffen et al., “Trajectories of Earth System.”
64. Dalby, “Recontextualising Violence”; and Peluso and Watts, “Violent Environments.”
65. Dalby, “Anthropocene Formations”; French, “Reappraisal of Sovereignty”; Green and Colgan, “Protecting Sovereignty”; McCarthy, “Scale, Sovereignty, and Strategy”; and Smith, “Against Ecological Sovereignty.”
66. Dalby, “Recontextualising Violence.”
67. Lansing, “Complex Adaptive Systems”; and Meadows, “Thinking in Systems.”
68. Dalby, “Biopolitics and Climate Security”; Dalby, “Recontextualising Violence”; and Steffen, Rockstrom, Richardson, “Trajectories of Earth System.”
69. Dalby, “Anthropocene Formations.”
70. Perelet, Pegov, and Yulkin, “Russia Country Paper”; and Wallace, “Arctic is Warming.”
71. McCarthy, “Global Warming Opens Artic.”
72. International Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change and Land.
73. UNSC, “Security Council Fails.”
74. UN HRC, “Human Rights Council adopts four resolutions on the right to development.”
75. US CSC, “Small Wars 8095.”
76. Mach et al., “Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict.”
77. IEP, “Ecological Threat Register 2020.”
78. Abel et al. “Climate, Conflict, and Forced Migration”; Ghimire et al., “Flood-induced Displacement and Civil Conflict”; Gleick, “Water, Drought, Climate Change”; IEP, “Ecological Threat Register 2020”; Kelley et al., “Climate Change in Fertile Crescent”; and Reuveny, “Climate Change-induced Migration.”
79. Mrema et al., “Protecting the Environment.”
80. Environmental Peacebuilding Association, “Environmental Peacebuilding Knowledge Platform”; and UNDG, “Natural Resource Management.”
81. US CSC, “Small Wars 8095.”
82. see note 76 above.
83. see note 77 above.
84. Abel et al., “Climate, Conflict, and Forced Migration”; Ghimire et al., “Flood-induced Displacement and Civil Conflict”; Gleick, “Water, Drought, Climate Change, and Conflict in Syria”; IEP, “Ecological Threat Register 2020”; Kelley et al., “Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought”; and Reuveny, “Climate change-induced migration and violent conflict.”
85. Mrema, Bruch, and Diamond, “Protecting the environment during armed conflict.”
86. EP, “Environmental Peacebuilding Knowledge Platform”; and UNDG, “Natural Resource Management in Transition Settings.”
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Notes on contributors
Kristina Hook
Kristina Hook, PhD is Assistant Professor of Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University’s School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding, and Development. Dr. Hook received her PhD from the University of Notre Dame and served as the inaugural Executive Director of George Mason University’s war prevention initiative, the Better Evidence Project. For her current book project, she conducted multi–year ethnographic fieldwork in Ukraine through Fulbright, National Science Foundation, and USAID research fellowships. An anthropologist, she has worked in twenty–five countries, specializing in genocide and mass atrocity prevention, human rights, and emerging technologies. Prior to her time in academia, Dr. Hook served as a U.S. Department of State policy advisor for conflict stabilization.
Richard Marcantonio
Richard Marcantonio, PhD is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Marcantonio’s current research integrates social and environmental science methods and theories to develop a concept of environmental violence, the process by which humans are harmed and/or have their everyday lives altered by human-produced toxic and non-toxic pollution. Central components of this work include Earth Systems and human niche construction theory, an understanding of global environmental change and risk, and the identification of patterns and processes, global to local in scale, that facilitate and result as a function of environmental violence.