Russia’s Ecocide in Ukraine

Anna Ackermann is a board member of Ukraine’s largest environmental NGO Centre for Environmental Initiatives “Ecoaction” and a policy analyst at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Since the beginning of russia’s full-scale invasion she has been focusing on the topic of Ukraine’s sustainable reconstruction, supporting efforts of civil society from around Europe in rebuilding a green Ukraine. Before this for she was engaged in advancing key reforms in Ukraine’s energy sector and more ambitious climate policies in the country.

Olia Hercules is an author, chef and activist who writes cookbooks and teaches for a living. She is a native of the Kherson region. She has written four books, her first one, Mamushka, won the prestigious Fortnum and Mason Award for best debut cookbook. She also wrote Kaukasis, Summer Kitchens and Home Food. Olia is co-founder of #CookforUkraine, a global initiative to raise funds for those affected by the war in Ukraine which raised over £2 million. Olia’s awards include Observer Rising Star in Food 2015, 50 Best (Champions of Change), the OFM Special Award for #CookforUkraine, and she was also included in Vogue UK’s list of top most influential women in 2022.

Darya Tsymbalyuk, PhD, is a scholar of environmental humanities in relation to Ukraine. She was a Max Hayward Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford (2022–23) and is now writing a book about the environmental impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine (to be published by Polity). Her articles and essays appeared/forthcoming in Nature, IWMpost, Antennae: Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment, Arcadia: Environment & Society Portal, Springs: The Rachel Carson Center Review, JIRD, The Funambulist Magazine, to name a few. Her most recent opinion piece on Kakhovka can be read in Open Democracy. 

Jonathon Turnbull is a cultural and environmental geographer at the University of Oxford. His PhD research examines how understandings of nature are produced and contested in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine. Alongside his academic work, he is co-producing a film about the dogs of Chornobyl and those that care for them.

Sasha Dovzhyk is a writer, literary scholar and curator from Zaporizhzhia. She is a Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies at UCL SSEES and Special Projects Curator for the Ukrainian Institute London. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Los Angeles Review of Books, CNN Opinion, Open Democracy and others. In addition to her work on Ukraine, she has written widely on fin-de-siecle culture, and is editor of Decadent Writings of Aubrey Beardsley (2022) and Ukrainian Cassandra: New Translations of Lesia Ukrainka (2023).