The Invisible Cost of Conflict: War and the Air We Breathe

My son’s walk to school takes twenty minutes. When we walk together during a power outage, we get tired from the noise and the smell of the generators that line the streets. It is as if you were standing behind the exhaust of an old running car engine.”

Anastasiia is AirGradient’s software developer, based in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, life in Kyiv has been vastly different. Anastasiia and I spoke about the various environmental impacts of the war.

I wanted to write this article because images of war are ubiquitous in our daily lives. Videos and photos of drone strikes, destroyed buildings, and tanks grace our newsfeeds and our phones when (or if) we scroll on social media. And the destruction and human suffering are rightly so, centre-screen. But what about the long-term effects of wars on our lived environment, which we depend on for survival? War and conflicts are environmental disasters, and ecosystems can take decades to rehabilitate, at which point the civilian population has suffered from the adverse health effects that are connected to military activities.

Air Pollution in Kyiv

Before my conversation with Anastasiia, I had researched the air pollution in Ukraine. In a review of multiple studies, researchers found that fine particulate matter (PM2.5) dramatically increased due to intense bombing, structural fires, and a massive rise in wildfires triggered by military operations. The movement of heavy military equipment and the destruction of buildings also released large amounts of hazardous dust and fossil-fuel emissions into the air. And lastly, a rather unreported side effect of the war in urban environments is also the increased use of generators, which create exhaust emissions.

In contrast, similar to the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, emissions of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide decreased due to factory and construction site closures resulting from military activities. A reduction in the civilian use of vehicles further contributed to the decline of these specific industrial pollutants as the economy was negatively impacted.

In light of all this, I was curious whether people noticed the spikes in particulate matter after missile strikes and fires; whether they felt the air quality worsened, and if masks were being worn in the streets. Anastasiia’s answer was complex, but the bottom line was:

Daily Life in Kyiv

To understand this, we need to understand what life in Kyiv currently looks like. Russian troops consistently target the city’s power stations, as well as the infrastructure that delivers the electricity to households, hospitals, and public spaces. After these attacks, electricity and heating are unavailable.

During the frequent blackouts, public life in Kyiv is fueled by generators. These petrol- or diesel-run machines provide power to small businesses, grocery stores, cafes, hospitals, and can range from the size of a washing machine to the size of a bus stop for large municipal buildings. Generators line the street, producing noise and polluting the air in a similar way to cars running idle in front of a store. In fact, in a study on the use of generators at the University of Technology in Baghdad, generators on campus emitted carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds at higher rates than the American EPA, WHO, and Iraqi standards. Additionally, the average particulate matter that was measured around the generators already exceeded the EPA standards of 300 ppm in four hours, less than half the time the EPA sets for this standard. Overall, we know that generators emit a high amount of pollutants and harm the air quality when they are used excessively in places where the power grid is unreliable.

If public life in Kyiv runs on generators, then power banks are the survival tool for individuals. Normally used for camping, they are loaded when the power is on, and can complete the essentials during blackouts, providing wifi and light. These are more eco-friendly and cheaper than generators, but they still do not provide enough power for certain essentials, like washing laundry or using the kettle. For individual use, these power banks are essential, but unfortunately, no substitute for generators. So, until further notice, the residents of Kyiv and throughout Ukraine must continue to live with generators and their emissions.

Long-Term, Short-Term, and War-Term

When I asked about the impact of these emissions on air quality in the city, and whether residents are concerned about their health, our conversation moved from descriptive to deeper talking points.

Anastasiia tells me that everyone knows the air they are breathing is polluted; they feel it every day when they breathe in the exhaust of the generators and the dust of destroyed buildings. But the reality of daily missile strikes dwarfs any concern about air pollution. And even more acutely, there is no alternative to using generators. They are indispensable to sustain daily life, for people to buy groceries or even to warm up in cafés when the heating is out. Similar to before the war, people concerned about air pollution will continue to check their air quality monitors, turn on their air purifying systems if they have enough power, and wear masks. For whom this was not an urgent topic before, Anastasiia says it likely hasn’t changed. The relentless danger of the war has overshadowed a topic like air pollution, and will continue to do so until the fighting stops.

My biggest takeaway from our conversation was a change in perspective. As humans, we have the ability and privilege to think about our life, and our health, in the long- and short term. But this privilege is not equally distributed around the world. It’s essential to be reminded, especially as advocates for air quality, that the communities we aim to support face multiple challenges simultaneously. Similar to Maslow’s pyramid of needs, whilst air quality is an important issue and deserves attention, it simply does not outweigh the importance of immediate physical safety, nutrition, and having a roof over one's head; and this is the unfortunate reality that places like Ukraine right now, or impoverished communities and countries around the world.
In the end, we can support communities fighting for cleaner air, but they always reserve the right to prioritise the dangers they experience to have a safer life.