Armed Forces of Ukraine
Important driver of greenhouse gas emissions. Tanks, fuels, fires and climate change.
The war in Ukraine, which began four years ago with the Russian invasion in February 2022, is having a profound and lasting environmental impactboth in the country and in the rest of the world.
In addition to the devastating human and geopolitical consequences, the conflict has also become an important driver of greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem destruction — an environmental cost often overlooked in conventional analyses.
According to data from the Initiative for Accounting for War GHGs (greenhouse gases), cited in , the conflict has increased cumulative emissions since its beginning to around 311 million tons of CO2 – that is comparable to the annual emissions of a country like France or the energy needed to pump water around the world.
These emissions are a direct product of military activities, such as the intensive use of tanks and machinery powered by fossil fuels, and indirect ones, including forest fires, destruction of infrastructure, forced migrations, civil air traffic and reconstruction work.
In the report, it even talks about “vicious cycle”: Armed conflicts and climate change “exacerbate each other”.
Tanks, fuels
Much of the emissions are linked to dependence on fossil fuels by military forces. Tanks, armored vehicles and combat aircraft consume enormous amounts of gasoline and dieselrepresenting more than a third of total emissions from the conflict last year.
This heavy consumption reflects a continued dependence on traditional fuels to power field operations, despite technological advances in other sectors.
Even with relatively stable fronts, the “continuous demand for fuel” to move troops, ammunition and logistics sustains a high carbon footprint that is rarely accounted for in official emissions reports.
Fires, climate change
As climate change, in turn, they worsened the environmental impact of the war.
The report highlights that the forest fires increased for the second year in a row, accounting for around 23% of conflict-related emissions.
By 2025, more than 1.39 million hectares of forests in Ukraine had been consumed by fire, a figure far greater than pre-war levels.
Abnormally hot and dry weather conditions — amplified by global warming — transformed small ignition points into large fires, which often became impossible to control due to logistical difficulties and the overload of emergency services.
Local organizations try to restore devastated natural areas not only to protect endangered species, but also to help communities, including soldiers, recover from psychological trauma.
However, these initiatives face enormous challenges in a scenario where climate change and war reinforce each other, creating a vicious cycle of destruction and environmental degradation.
Reconstruction and future emissions
The process of reconstruction also has a significant footprint.
The need to rebuild destroyed infrastructure, especially in the energy sector, has intensified emissions in recent months, reflecting the scale of destruction caused by deliberate attacks on heating and electricity networks during the harsh winter of 2025-2026.
This Tuesday marked 4 years since the start of the war in Ukraine.
