Compound Climate and Wartime Risks to the Agri-Food System of Ukraine: Challenges, Interactions and Adaptation Pathways

Ukraine occupies a strategically important position in global food security as one of the world's major agricultural producers. However, its agri-food system faces an unprecedented combination of risks: climate change-related pressures (including rising temperatures, increased drought frequency, and shifting precipitation patterns) are compounded by the consequences of full-scale war since February 2022. These two categories of risk do not operate independently. They interact, reinforce each other, and jointly undermine the resilience of the agricultural and food sectors. The destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in June 2023 exemplifies this compound risk phenomenon, where military action instantiated climate-type water stress across nearly 600,000 hectares of previously irrigated agricultural land. This paper analyzes the mechanisms by which wartime conditions amplify climate vulnerability in Ukraine's agri-food system, draws comparisons with international experience in conflict-affected agricultural environments, and proposes an integrated framework of adaptation pathways. The findings indicate that effective adaptation requires abandoning the parallel treatment of climate and wartime recovery as separate policy domains and embracing a comprehensive approach that incorporates climate resilience into reconstruction from the outset.