Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia's War
Date and Time
Location
A book talk and discussion with author Darya Tsymbalyuk, Assistant Professor at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU) at the University of Chicago
Moderated by Emily Channell-Justice, Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at HURI
This event is organized by HURI as part of the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies public event series and Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program.
About the Book
Winner of Arizona State University's 2026 Humanities Institute Book Award
Winner of the 2025 Kovaliv Prize in Nonfiction/History
Russia's war on Ukraine has not only destroyed millions of human lives, it has also been catastrophic for the environment. Forests and fields have been burned to the ground, animal and plant species pushed to the brink of extinction, soil and water contaminated with oil products, debris, and mines. On a single day in June 2023, the breached Kakhovka Dam flooded thousands of kilometres of protected natural habitat, as well as villages, towns, and agricultural land. The devastation of biodiversity and ecosystems across Ukraine has been immeasurable, long-lasting and its consequences stretch beyond national borders.
In this poignant book, Ukrainian researcher Darya Tsymbalyuk offers an intimate portrait of her beloved homeland against the backdrop of Russia's war and ecocide. In elegant and moving prose, she describes the damage to the country's rivers, the grasslands of the steppes, animals, insects, and colonies of birds, as a result of Russia's ground and air operations. Alongside the everyday experiences of people in Ukraine living with the environmental consequences of the war, we share Tsymbalyuk's own reckoning with the changing nature of cherished places and the loss of familiar worlds caused by the ongoing Russian invasion. [source]
About the Author
Darya Tsymbalyuk is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU) at the University of Chicago. She is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the intersection of environmental humanities and artistic research, and her practice includes writing and image-making. Tsymbalyuk is the author of Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia’s War (Polity, 2025), which received the 2026 Humanities Institute Book Award from Arizona State University and the 2025 UNWLA Kovaliv Prize in nonfiction/history. Among her many shorter scholarly publications is a double special issue on the environmental humanities of Ukraine co-edited with Tanya Richardson and forthcoming with East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies. Her other scholarly texts have been published by Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of International Relations and Development, Narrative Culture, REGION: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, to name a few. Her public-facing writing appeared in BBC Future Planet, Public Books, openDemocracy, The Funambulist, KAJET, NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment, and many other platforms. In 2023, she received Mary Zirin Prize from the Association for Women in Slavic Studies. You can learn more about her work here: https://daryatsymbalyuk.com/