IVAN TYMOFEIEV MISSED HIS family in western Ukraine. He’d been working for a large German conservation nonprofit in Berlin and decided it was time for a trip to see his mother in his hometown of Uzhhorod. He also planned a work-related detour: a visit to partners working on a peatlands restoration project in Ukraine’s Zacharovanyi Krai National Park, which he was overseeing from afar.
When Tymofeiev boarded a plane on February 10, 2022, he thought he’d be gone a few weeks. A full-scale invasion by Russian forces was a threat, but one Ukrainians had lived with for years, particularly since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Although active fighting had occurred along Ukraine’s eastern border, everyday life was peaceful for most. No one knew when—or how, or if—tensions would come to a head.
On February 24, Tymofeiev woke at dawn in his childhood bedroom to his phone buzzing: Russia had launched dozens of missiles aimed at cities across Ukraine. “It was all so fast. It’s something you don’t like to remember but can’t forget,” says Tymofeiev, who is the Central Asia and Eastern Europe deputy team leader for the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU).
Russian troops moved swiftly across the country’s eastern edge, bombing Kharkiv before descending on the capital of Kyiv, where they encountered intense resistance and failed to take the city. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly issued a state of martial law, which barred most adult male citizens, including Tymofeiev, from leaving. Since then, the brutal war has continued with no end in sight. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that more than 9,000 Ukrainian civilians have died, more than 16,000 have been injured, and more than 6 million people have fled, creating the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
Beyond the human tragedy, the invasion has taken an incalculable toll on the environment. Even so,
