This article examines the legal framework for prosecuting environmental crimes resulting from Russian aggression against Ukraine. Despite existing international humanitarian law provisions in the ENMOD Convention, Additional Protocol I, and Rome Statute, the threshold for proving "widespread, long-term, and severe" environmental damage remains prohibitively high, with no successful prosecutions to date. Ukraine has documented over 200 criminal proceedings concerning environmental war crimes, with damages exceeding 250 billion hryvnias. The study analyzes national documentation efforts through governmental agencies and civil society initiatives like EcoThreat platform. The research highlights the first-ever wartime ecocide prosecution attempt involving the Kharkiv nuclear facility attack. Recent developments, including PACE Resolution on ecocide codification and the Register of Damage establishment, suggest evolving international response mechanisms. The article concludes that while current IHL capabilities remain limited, Ukraine's experience may catalyze strengthened international environmental monitoring and accountability frameworks.
Kozych et al. (2025) studied this question.