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3 days ago
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Yuriy Bengus, a biologist, surveyed a scene of destruction. The Zhuravli forest, on the northern edge of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was a blackened mess. Rooks cawed from burned pine trees and hopped between stumps. A dead bird lay in an abandoned military dugout. War was down the road. From somewhere to the north of Kharkiv came a muffled boom.
Bengus plunged his spade into the sandy earth. “From an ecological point of view, oaks are most suitable,” he said. His assistant, Yulia Kucherevska, a 16-year-old volunteer, reached into a plastic bag, pulling out three acorns that she tossed into a shallow hole. The pair moved on to the next spot and threw in three more. Behind them a No 16 tram rattled past.
In spring 2022 Russian troops had tried to seize Kharkiv, home to a million people. The city’s defenders dug trenches in the forest and blocked the road – now named Invincible Street and previously called Hero of Labour Alley – with concrete blocks and tank traps. Meeting fierce resistance, the Russians pulled back.
Ever since, the Russian army has been bombing Kharkiv, using ballistic and other missiles. The forest is near the city’s most pummelled district – Saltivka, its high-rise blocks gutted shells – and a hydropark, a park based around a body of water. On 17 September a Russian warplane hit the green site with an aerial bomb. Four firefighters tackling an existing fire were injured, with one losing an arm. The blaze swallowed up four acres of woodland, killing animals and scaring away coots on the water nearby.
Bengus, along with a group of volunteers, is now attempting to restore the forest. Why bother, given that Russian forces might come back and with fighting continuing a mere 12 miles away? “The oaks will take 25 years to reach maturity. But I’m certain the forest will survive. I’m more optimistic now than before. Where we are standing will be Ukraine,” he said.
He added: “Russia has been trying to destroy us for hundreds of years, in particular our language and culture. But we always come back to life as a people and a nation. They can bomb us, of course, but I don’t think they can take over Kharkiv.” He continued: “We have a different mentality. Russians obey power. Our government listens to us.”
The biologist’s ambitious plan is to replace the charred trees with English oaks, Quercus robur, which are native to Ukraine and Europe. A virulent root fungus has already wiped out many of Kharkiv’s Scots pines, causing them to shed their orange bark. “Oaks encourage biodiversity. They help mycelium growth and are good for insects and birds,” he said.
After Bengus posted about the forest on his Facebook page, he was inundated with offers of help. Children from a neighbourhood school, lycee number 23, collected 50kg of acorns. A scientist in Kyiv sent a box belonging to a pyramid-shaped oak variety. The students put the acorns in water, rejecting any that floated to the top – healthy ones will sink.
Kucherevska, who studies at the school, visits the forest three times a week after classes before it gets dark. “It’s fun. I come here with my friends,” she said, adding: “If there’s an air raid alert my parents won’t let me go.” So far, she had buried “around 40,000 acorns”. Not all would survive, but this meant many new trees, she said.
She and her biology teacher, Anna Bochka, joined a digging party earlier this week, along with Bengus and his wife, Lyudmila. Bochka made a note of where saplings would sprout. What about the risk from bombs? “We’ve got used to it. We’ve adapted. I refuse to be terrified. Everyone is doing what they do. In our case that’s planting oaks. I believe Kharkiv has a future,” she said.
Beyond the city, the situation is grim. Both sides build fortifications in wooded frontline areas, and use trees to conceal armoured vehicles and firing positions. In May the Russians launched a cross-border attack on the city of Vovchansk, now a wreck, in Kharkiv oblast. They are closing in on Kupiansk – seized by Russians at the start of the full-scale invasion, liberated, and in danger of being captured again. Russian airstrikes against Ukraine energy infrastructure and cities on Christmas Day left half a million people in the Kharkiv region without heating.
Yevhen Vasylenko, the spokesperson for Kharkiv’s regional emergency department, said more than 300 forest fires had been recorded in 2024, the worst year ever. He said Russian shelling was often the cause, with the dense mining of forests adding to the problem. One fire in September ripped through the village of Studenok, near the city of Izium, burning down 236 houses and forcing 200 people to flee. It went on for a week.
“We can’t use helicopters to extinguish fires from the air because of the war. It’s impossible. And you can’t walk in the forest because of mines. We use sappers to put the fire out,” Vasylenko said. He added: “I don’t think anyone has experience of working in a situation when you can be shelled and attacked by drones, or can step on a mine at any time. It’s very hard.”
The Studenok fire destroyed 4,000 acres of forest, located between Kharkiv and the war-torn Donetsk region, he said. Smoke made it difficult for people to breathe. Firefighters saved residents and – where possible – rescued rabbits, hedgehogs and turtles. Ducks and many dogs died. “The problem is Russia wants to destroy our country. They are ruining our ecosystem as well,” he said.
After seeding new oak trees, Begnus went back to his flat in Kharkiv and collected more acorns from the local park. He pointed to trees he had planted back in the 1980s next to his high-rise block: an exotic ginkgo and a towering redwood. “The neighbours on the first floor are not happy about the redwood. They complain it blots out their light,” he said. “But when it comes to nature and biodiversity, we have to do something.”
