In this talk, Darya Tsymbalyuk presents glimpses from her forthcoming book “Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia’s War” (Polity, March 2025). Russia’s ongoing environmental damage in Ukraine has been visible globally through narratives of the Kakhovka disaster, destruction of grain and grain facilities, and the active role Ukraine has been taking in trailblazing the documentation of the crimes of ecocide and in making a precedent for the addition of the crime of ecocide to the Rome Statute. In her work, Prof Tsymbalyuk examines the everyday reality of living with and witnessing ecocide, arguing that the impacts of ecocide transcend the boundaries of legal understandings of crime, and profoundly shape ways in which we perceive and experience environments. Thus, places that were once considered safe now hold danger, where, for example, practices such as mushroom picking, foraging, collecting firewood and taking cattle out for grazing are often lethal. By focusing on ruptured and reconfigured environmental relations, she reflects on the changing meanings of water, air, zemlia, bodies, plants, and energy in Ukraine today.
Darya Tsymbalyuk is an interdisciplinary researcher, and her practice includes writing and image-making. Most of Darya’s work lies at the intersection of environmental humanities and artistic research. Darya is the author of the forthcoming book Ecocide in Ukraine: the Environmental Cost of Russia’s War (Polity Press 2025), as well as Limits of Collaboration: Art, Ethics, and Donbas, co-written with Victoria Donovan in collaboration with artists and curators Dmytro Chepurnyi, Viktor “Corwic” Zasypkin, Oleksandr Kuchynskyi, and Kateryna Siryk (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Ukraine, 2022). Among her many shorter publications is a double special issue on the environmental humanities of Ukraine co-edited with Tanya Richardson and forthcoming with East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies. In addition to writing, Darya also works with images through drawing, painting, collage, and film essays. Darya serves as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago. You can learn more about her work here: https://daryatsymbalyuk.com/