Locusts and Landmines Threaten Ukraine’s Farmland
Ecosystems have also come under threat from toxic plants whose spread has been difficult to control during the Russian invasion.
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The people of Ukraine won’t soon forget the summer of 2025, a period that saw a significant increase in Russian attacks on the country, including the largest number of drones sent to kill and terrorize Ukrainians.
This summer farmers witnessed another invasion of their lands — a locust outbreak that devastated crops across southern and eastern Ukraine.
Videos shared with The Revelator show swarms of locusts — each as wide as a human hand — ravaging fields of sunflowers and corn in the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kherson, and Odesa regions, adding to the dangerous effects of war on these ecosystems.
It’s not a coincidence that the regions most affected by the outbreak are among those experiencing some of the worst fighting.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered an environmental crisis, experts say, that is manifesting in the rise of invasive species.
“The fields with proper agrotechnical tillage are not conducive to laying eggs for the locusts,” says Andriy Fedorenko, a senior researcher at the Institute of Grain Crops of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences in Ukraine, who spent several weeks this summer researching the breeding patterns of locusts in the affected regions. “But abandoned agricultural lands and dried-up ponds are ideal.”
He says the locusts have gained a foothold in vast farmlands made unusable by the Russian invasion, as well as the area affected by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Devastated crops in Ukraine. Photo: Andriy Fedorenko (used with permission)
The Soviet-era structure on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine was bombed on June 6, 2023, causing flooding in several towns on its banks along with mass casualties.
Fedorenko observed that the dam’s destruction had disrupted regional ecosystems. The addition of dry weather and the increase in military activity led to a locust outbreak, he says.
In photos and videos shared from the field, Fedorenko offered evidence of how flooding created optimal conditions for an outbreak — a conclusion shared by other scientists.
“Receding floodwaters exposed large moist areas, optimal spots for egg laying and feeding,” Stanislav Viter, a researcher with the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Group, wrote in a recent report. He noted that the wetland reed beds, saturated with floodwaters, provided fodder to the pests.
“A single locust consumes vegetation equivalent to 1–1.5 times its weight every day,” Viter wrote. Crop fields “flooded and abandoned because of the war as well as on the bed of the former Kakhovka Reservoir” offered just that.
Locusts also need favorable climate conditions — very high temperatures — to breed. Climate change may have furthered their recent reproductive success.
“The temperature regime in total over two years, particularly in 2024, has also been extremely high compared to previous years,” says Fedorenko. In 2024 the temperatures across the fertile steppes were the highest in the past 10 years. “The average temperature increased by 1.1°C and 3.9°C in the past decade,” he says.
‘Ecocide’
In a statement shared with The Revelator, the Ukrainian government also provided a similar assessment, terming the phenomenon “Russian ecocide” — the destruction of the environment resulting from Russia’s invasion.
“After the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant by Russian troops, large areas that had long been at the bottom of the reservoir were freed from water,” wrote Serhii Tkachuk, head of the State Service of Ukraine on Food Security. “These moist and warm soils, with abundant reed vegetation, became an ideal reserve for the development of locusts.”
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Tkachuk added that this year the government applied pesticides in several regions to address the outbreaks, most notably an 83-square-mile area in the Zaporizhzhia district.
Other local reports documented farmers who suffered crop damages ranging from 25% to a near total loss, stretching as far westward as the Zhytomyr region. In the Kherson region, local media reports noted that nearly 10.4 square miles of sunflowers were destroyed.
Locusts were also observed in 2024 in the territory of the Slobozhansky village council of the Chuhuiv district of the Kharkiv region.
“There are also large areas of uncultivated land and neglected fields due to the war, and the locust invasion can be considered one of the manifestations of ecocide caused by the actions of the Russian Federation not only against Ukraine but also against the environment as a whole,” Tkachuk wrote.
The attack on the dam had long-term consequences for agrarian communities, since nearly 90% of the irrigation canals from the dam have dried up. A 2024 report by the International Center for Ukrainian Victory estimated that the loss of irrigation caused cost the country $182 million a year in lost crop production.
As climate change triggers a rise in temperatures, Viter’s report warns, new outbreaks could occur in parts of Ukraine that have become “suitable locations” for locusts due to the war. “The same applies to the El Niño phenomenon, with high temperatures and heavy rainfall in most regions of Ukraine,” he wrote.
How Wars Can Breed Locusts
In his report Viter noted, “Where there is war, there are locusts.”
Michel Lecoq, an entomologist specializing in the ecology of locusts and grasshoppers, agrees. “Conflicts can lead to changes in ecological conditions, transforming some areas into breeding and outbreak zones where hopper bands and swarms can form,” he says. For example, he says, an outbreak of migratory locusts occurred in France after World War II and lasted until 1949.
“On 20 July 1945, a swarm stretching 20 km in length was observed,” says Lecoq. “Some individuals migrated to England, illustrating the magnitude of the breeding and multiplication that must have occurred at the time — remarkable given that the species is usually very rare in the Landes, its original outbreak area.”
Lecoq says these outbreaks developed in France following the abandonment and fallowing of large tracts of land that were no longer cultivated due to the war — much like what’s happening now in Ukraine.
“In most outbreak areas, population dynamics is intimately connected to changes of water balance in breeding areas,” he says. The destruction of the dam “exposed numerous areas — previously submerged — that have since become highly favorable for this insect’s reproduction.”
Raiding the Breadbasket
The rise of locusts and other invasive species is adding to the challenges of the agrarian community, Ukraine’s economic backbone.
Ukraine is often known as the breadbasket of the world, producing 10% of the global wheat market — shipping out 6.5 million metric tons every month before the war.
Since the Russian invasion, however, Ukraine’s agricultural sector has suffered direct losses of more than $80 billion in infrastructure and production, according to studies.
Evidence also suggests that not only has Russia deliberately targeted agricultural equipment, logistics and storage facilities, they’ve also stolen Ukrainian agricultural products.
On top of that, landmines now contaminate more than 54,000 square miles of Ukraine — 20% of the country and one of the highest concentrations of the lethal devices in the world, according to the UN.
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This assault on agricultural land has had a direct impact on global food security, prompting action and investment from international bodies and countries in prioritizing the demining of Ukrainian territories.
However, the scale of the problem, compounded with the continuing and increasing Russian attacks that add to the contamination, means that it could be decades or even centuries, according to one estimate, before the land is once again usable for farming.
According to a recent UN Food Insecurity report, the production estimate for 2024-25, for all grains in unoccupied areas, is 13% lower than the previous year.
Amidst this a locust outbreak adds to farmers’ woes.
Ironically, some restaurants have tried to raise awareness of the threat by addressing it from a different angle: A few chefs in Kharkiv added locusts to their menu, not only because they were widely available but also to dramatically highlight the problem.
Farmlands to Battlefields
While the worst of the locust outbreak has passed, Tkachuk wrote that the situation in frontline areas continues to be of “particular concern.”
Lecoq also advises close monitoring of the areas exposed by the destruction of the dam — “as far as the current conflict allows,” he says — since swarms could potentially invade much larger territories.
History shows how locust outbreaks can quickly travel and extend the scope of their destruction.
“During the Middle Age, locust swarms originating from the delta regions of the Danube and Volga rivers were known to migrate as far as Western Europe, reaching Germany and even France,” he points out.
The invasions in Ukraine could also spread beyond its borders. “Once invasions begin, they can spread rapidly from their original outbreak area… Swarms could potentially invade much larger territories,” Lecoq says.
Unfortunately the situation in Ukraine remains unpredictable. Constant military activities, mainly from regular Russian bombings, have prevented farmers in the region from taking preventive or curative action.
Conflicts can prevent access to key areas known to regularly host outbreaks when ecological conditions are favorable, Lecoq says. He points to examples of conflict zones in East Africa and the Near East that have hindered the detection of, and access to, the initial breeding and outbreak areas of the desert locust.
“This allowed the outbreaks to expand and develop into an upsurge — a near-invasion — which rapidly spread across much of East Africa and extended as far as Pakistan and India,” he says.
In Ukraine many of the affected areas are in active combat zones or areas that are still heavily mined, Tkachuk wrote, making it “difficult or impossible to carry out timely preventive and extermination measures.”
Paradise, Disrupted
Aside from the locusts and Putin’s army, other invasive species have also arrived unwelcome in Ukraine since the start of the war, experts have observed.
“One of the war’s delayed consequences could be an outbreak of these alien species — dangerous invasive flora and fauna, the spread of which must be controlled,” Nataliia Pashkevich, senior researcher at the geobotany and ecology department, at the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, wrote in a paper for UWEC.
“The geography of the areas from which Russian military units are deployed into Ukraine is quite extensive… and an uncontrolled mass of seeds arriving together with equipment and soldiers is destructive for European ecosystems of Ukraine,” Pashkevich wrote.
She identified invasive species such as Sosnowsky’s hogweed (Heracleum sosnowskyi) and giant hogweed (H. mantegazzianum) from the Caucasus that can now be found in occupied territories as well as parts of the Carpathian Mountains. The plants are known to spread rapidly and widely and threaten local insects, birds, plants, and fungi with their peculiar physicochemical toxicity, which can even harm humans on contact.
The Revelator previously reported that destruction of the dam led to an unlikely outcome — the revival of the “Great Meadows” in Ukraine, which were lost during the rapid Soviet industrialization in the 1950s.
While some of these vegetations can serve as a band-aid for war-wounded regions, risks remain.
“As invasives spread, they transform the environment to their own advantage, changing key factors — such as humidity, lighting conditions, soil chemistry,” Pashkevich wrote. “Biological invasions recognize no borders.”
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Previously in The Revelator:
Cranes in Ukraine: Birds of Joy in a War-Torn Land
The post Locusts and Landmines Threaten Ukraine’s Farmland appeared first on The Revelator.
