Issue 2. Water

Ivan Rusev is a biologist, a professor, and the director of the Tuzly Estuaries national park in Ukraine’s south-western Odesa region, on the Black Sea coast. In the mid-1970s, while working in the steppes and deserts of Central Asia, he had witnessed how the Soviet system destroyed the Aral sea: huge quantities of river water were diverted towards cotton and corn production. Watching the Aral sea dry up made Ivan Rusev become an environmentalist.

Today’s ecological disasters range from the climate crisis to the impact of wars. Ivan Rusev works to protect small rivers from overexploitation, and to save the flora and fauna of the Tuzla estuaries from the impact of Russia’s war. He wants future generations to be able to enjoy and respect natural resources. We discussed all of this with him.

For many Ukrainians, environmental and climate issues faded into the background during the three years of this war. But 2025 began with the images of massive fires in California, bringing attention back to the topic even in Ukraine. How do you work in this context?

Environmentalists believe there is now a climate imbalance. So we’re not only talking about global warming. We can’t predict what will happen this summer. Looking at various phenomena, including the California fires, we see that fires or floods can occur in all seasons.

It’s true that with the beginning of the full-scale war, this topic receded into the background in Ukraine. And I am very sorry to have to admit that Ukraine isn’t doing much to reduce the burden put on the environment.

The Tuzly Estuaries national park where I work covers thirteen estuaries. According to Ukraine’s Water Code, these estuaries should be protected by a two-kilometer long coastal strip — both along the fields and along the lagoons. But in the 1990s, the estuaries were labeled “lakes”, and the protective strip for lakes is just one hundred meters long. Yet even these one hundred meters aren’t respected: local farmers simply steal land. Half of the [protection zone] areas are now almost destroyed and no longer function as a natural ecosystem which can help absorb carbon.

So when we say that some country somewhere doesn’t fulfill its obligations, we should remember that we ourselves aren’t fulfilling our obligations and laws aimed at alleviating the risks to the environment and the danger of climate change.

But how can such obligations be respected in wartime?

The war really does block opportunities. But in our country many state institutions are responsible for enforcing laws. First, there is the environmental inspection. Yet it works very slowly, very poorly, very inefficiently. I can say this with confidence, because we in the national park often encounter their work.

Secondly, there is the police force, which, by the way, received very nice cars thanks to the Kyoto Protocol. In cases of violations and criminal proceedings, the police work either unprofessionally or to the benefit of corruption schemes. Our state apparatus is also responsible for this. Thirdly, we in the natural park try to cooperate with border guards, but they also don’t fulfill their duties when violations occur.

The war significantly affects various processes, but everyone does what they can. I am in the rear, in the Odesa region. Our national park is the only one located in the Azov-Black Sea region that is not occupied by Russia. We can observe the environment, document all the impacts of the war on the sea, the estuaries, and on small rivers. So we document everything, and then we will use the data we collect to claim compensation for damages.

Which Russian crimes against the environment did you document in the Black Sea and the estuaries?

Even before the full-scale invasion, Russia already occupied the northwestern Black Sea area with its ships. They roamed the waters, using, as I said, sonars installed both on submarines and on surface ships.

Two weeks before the war started, there were no dolphins in our area because they spend winters in the deep waters near Crimea, in Georgia, and in Turkey. So when the war began, dolphins didn’t suffer here, they started to die only once they’d started migrating back to our waters. The Russians were already here. We discovered the first dead dolphin in our park at the twenty-fifth kilometer of the sandbank. Externally, it looked unharmed. It had been killed by the sonar.

We monitored the coast, received information from experts in different countries, from the military. We know that, in addition to killing dolphins in our waters, the Russians also scared them away. Large pods of dolphins migrated along the coast of Romania to Bulgaria. They were fleeing the invading Russian ships. We estimate that, from February until the end of June 2022, when Snake Island was de-occupied and when the Boyko towers (which housed ​​Russian air defense and other devices) were set on fire, about fifty thousand Black Sea cetaceans died. When the Russians were driven back to Sevastopol, this impact on dolphins decreased.

During the operations to liberate Snake Island, bombs fell into the Black Sea, causing powerful noises for dolphins — the animals instantly float up to the surface of the sea. When this happens abruptly, the dolphins’ capillaries burst, and then they can suffer a heart attack. This phenomenon is also common among scuba divers when they quickly surface: nitrogen abruptly leaves the capillaries, causing bursting.

In addition, about six hundred anti-ship mines were dropped into our waters. We found such mines on our park’s coastline. When these mines explode in the water, they also kill dolphins. Our colleagues from Romania informed the Ukrainian Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources that they had seen dolphins with burns from phosphorus mines.

We collected all this information, and on July 27, 2022, criminal proceedings were opened for ecocide under article 441 of Ukraine’s criminal code. The investigation is still ongoing. For three years now, we haven’t been able to get the autopsy results for the dolphins from our park. The autopsy material was sent to laboratories in Italy and Germany, but our general prosecutor’s office still hasn’t received their response.

What does this situation with dolphins mean for Ukraine and for other countries? Why is it important to raise this issue?

Dolphins are at the top of the food chain, the ecological pyramid of the Black Sea. They are the orderlies of the sea. Without dolphins, there is no one to control the biological life of the sea, and the entire ecosystem becomes unbalanced. Before the war, fishing and poaching would lead to dolphin deaths: about twenty thousand dolphins died annually at the hands of poachers. After this war started, fifty thousand dolphins were killed in 2022. In 2023, another twenty thousand. And in 2024, another ten thousand.

What other consequences of the war did you record in 2023-2024?

The Russians came very close to the coast. They launched small submarines that came two to three hundred meters from the shore and fired various shells at the shore. This scared away birds that were migrating or nesting. In 2023, pink flamingos started nesting here. At that time, it wasn’t very obvious that they were impacted by the war. We got two hundred chicks, and they flew away. When the flamingos returned in 2024, there were about four hundred nests with eggs. But Russian drones scared away the birds. They left the nests, which were then destroyed by large white-headed gulls. The flamingos have wintered in Italy, Bulgaria, and Turkey, but I hope they will return.

We witnessed how, after the Kakhovka dam was blown up, so many different objects came to us: doors, windows, islands of plants. There were many Danube newts on them. This animal is listed in the Red Book, and the explosion of the hydroelectric power station, by destroying their main habitats, affected this species negatively. We transferred some of the newts to the Danube Reserve, they released them. The rest either simply died or were eaten by predators.

Some areas were damaged by fires which broke out mainly after military exercises held by the Ukrainian army. They needed somewhere to train, but the fires were bad for the life and biodiversity of the park.

Right now, every hour, we register information from various sources about dolphins being killed by Russian tanker accidents in the Kerch Strait. This is also a consequence of the war, because the oil products these tankers transport are used to destroy Ukrainians.

Never in history has such a quantity of fuel oil been spilled into the Black Sea. Fuel oil is a heavy fraction of oil that has a greater density than water. Fuel oil does not spread like gasoline. It is more or less solid and hardens even more at temperatures below twenty degrees. Many small fractions of fuel oil immediately end up in the water, and then in biological objects. According to satellite data, you can see that a large area has already been polluted. More than ten thousand birds of various species have already died, and nothing can be done about it.

Statistics show that after such accidents, ninety percent of the birds die. Fuel oil is a toxicant that enters the bird's body and can be carcinogenic, can change the genetic structure of an animal and cause great stress. And when a bird is weakened, hungry and stressed, it inevitably dies.

You mentioned that large areas are ​​mined. Obviously, this must affect not only flora and fauna but also people's access to water resources.

Large areas of eastern Ukraine are mined, including especially valuable territories that are part of the Nature reserve fund. It is practically impossible to do anything on these territories, or to demine them now. In the future, something may be done, but this is a task for many years yet. When mines explode, a lot of chemicals get into both the soil and the water. Ultimately, this damages the life cycle of bodies of water, and humans are at the top of that cycle. Everyone uses water. But, again, it is currently impossible to do anything about that impact of the war.

Other consequences are visible too. We can’t live without fresh water. Without it, we can’t keep livestock nor grow anything. Fresh water depends on the current state of rivers and lakes. In the south of Ukraine, almost all the small rivers that fed the lakes and the Black Sea estuaries have died out. And they died out because greedy landowners and large farmers are destroying the coastal strip almost to the riverbeds. A lot of chemicals get into the water, and water just disappears. It doesn’t appear in the streams. Of the two hundred rivers in our area, hardly any are still “living” ones. Therefore, if we don’t set up state-level and regional programs for the restoration of rivers and floodplains, we won’t be able to maintain guaranteed fresh water.

What kind of catastrophe can we expect?

Previously, the microclimate found near lakes and rivers made it possible to grow certain types of agricultural plants and to secure a more or less stable harvest. But when that microclimate, supported by small rivers and lakes, is gone, the consequences will be dire.

There will be heat, and all the plants we’ll grow will suffer. There simply won’t be harvest.

For example, Ukraine’s state agency for water resources says that large irrigation systems should be built. But irrigation isn’t the solution. The main thing is to preserve waterways, that is, rivers and lakes, where fresh water is found. And this is already impossible today. I am a witness to how, in my region, water is being destroyed right up to the riverbed. Protective strips are being destroyed, not to mention the fact that chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides are used in water areas that are meant to be protected. This shouldn’t happen.

How can all of this affect not only Ukraine, but also the wider region?

We live in a global world and are very aware of environmental consequences. If our country suffers from a shortage of certain resources, we’ill be very dependent on others. And if we cause of environmental degradation, this will affect others too.

In the first days following the destruction of the Boyko towers on June 20, 2022, a large amount of CO2 and other substances were released. These emissions make their way to different countries in Europe. Yet there is no reaction to this.

In ecology, it’s not like you do something locally and it doesn’t have a negative impact globally. Everything is connected to everything: this is Barry Commoner's first law of ecology.

Have you seen such examples in your work?

The national park team began its work in 2016. We saw that almost no small river supplied fresh water to the estuaries. Someone somewhere took a little water from a stream, it did not go into the river nor below to the dam. Something done at a local level affects the life of the estuaries and further, the life of the Black Sea.

For about thirty years I worked in the Dniester river delta and studied its ecological systems. After the construction of the Dniester hydroelectric power station began in the 1970s, it took away a third of the Dniester’s annual water flow. Large areas of meadows dried up, as well as floodplains which glossy ibises would historically migrate to from Africa. Of the one and a half thousand individuals of this species that lived here in the 1970s, now only a few pairs remain. Many channels along the Dniester have simply dried up. Many areas with reeds have disappeared. This has led to an increase in fires. That is, what began fifty years ago is now having a very strong impact on the Dniester ecosystem. People who live there suffer from a lack of natural meadows, because without them, phytophilic fish species cannot spawn. Fishermen will not make a profit. And frequent fires harm people's health.

You mentioned that meadows disappeared during the construction of the Dniester hydroelectric power station. The same thing happened when the Kakhovka dam was built. After it was destroyed, many scientists began to discuss restoring the coastal area to what it was like before the dam was erected. What do you think of this?

I am a supporter of equilibrium in nature. We must move towards sustainable development. Resources must be preserved so that future generations can enjoy them and the biosphere can function as a whole. So, when government representatives talk about rebuilding the Kakhovka power plant, I have a question: why rebuild it, and for whom? For big business? So that it produces more energy? What is this energy for?

Near where I was born, there is lake Sasyk, which was once an estuary. Then came a large Soviet project — they separated the estuary from the sea with a dam and wanted to transfer water from the Danube through the Dniester to the Dnieper, for agricultural purposes. They lost the entire estuary in this way. Everything that had lived for centuries in complete harmony with the meadows was destroyed. That’s why I am categorically against restoring the Kakhovka plant back to how it was built during the Soviet period.

Can Ukraine restore natural equilibrium?

Yes, this is the real “decommunization” of nature. Because the Kakhovka power plant was not built for people to live in prosperity with a sound economy. The Soviet Union wanted to win in a competition with America. This race yielded nothing.

The Soviet Union never calculated the consequences for people. The Communist party only factored in its own profit. Neither nature nor society got anything from this. I believe that all the Soviet projects on the territory of Ukraine were ineffective. Now, in the 21st century, we need to use energy and environmental technologies to make people's lives safe.

To sum up, Ukraine is in a situation where we have to deal with the environmental consequences of what was inherited from the Soviet Union. At the same time, we will deal with the environmental consequences of Russia's military actions. But we are quite vulnerable because we can’t communicate with all our neighbors in terms of preserving ecosystems and water resources, not least because one of our neighbors is Russia.

Yes, I agree with you, we have to take into account both the consequences of the Soviet system and the consequences of the war. But we also have to take into account corruption. When a lot of money is spent on some big projects, like power plants in unique places, or when the coasts of estuaries and seas are destroyed for the sake of building something, it is a disaster.

Everything should be based on the principle of accountability. We’ll be able to restore what we have lost only once everyone is held responsible for their actions.

When I was little, I read about the loss of the Rhine river, which capitalism destroyed. But years, decades have passed, and Europe invested a lot of money to restore that ecosystem. This is an example we should look up to.

What could happen next? Are there scenarios you are most afraid of?

On one hand, we know the sea level is rising now and many illegally built facilities will be flooded. In the Dniester delta, for example, unique coastal areas and natural meadows where fish lived and birds nested were built over with luxury villas.

 In 2022, Ukraine promised to increase the share of natural, protected areas to 15% of its territory by 2030. As of then and now, such natural areas represent 6.5% of the national territory, and we are doing nothing to increase that.

If global climate change continues, we will lose land. But Ukraine has enough opportunities to survive. We have a diverse territory, from lowlands to mountains. Yet if we don't overcome corruption and Russia, the risks of losing everything are very high.

Translated from Ukrainian by re/visions