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Paper short abstract

An estimated one-third of Ukrainian territory has become contaminated since Russia’s full-scale invasion. This paper examines how Ukrainian soil is discursively constructed across textual and visual media narratives and analyzes how they shape our understanding of the war’s environmental violence.

Paper long abstract

Narratives about Ukrainian soil have circulated widely in mainstream and social media throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Media narratives invoke “General Mud” and rasputitsa (the muddy season) to explain the timing of various offensives and counter-offensives. Satellite and drone imagery offers a visual chronicle from above of the transformation of the land under intensive bombing as well as the construction of trenches and fortifications. With an estimated one-third of Ukrainian territory now contaminated, the fate of soil is central to the country’s food system and future social and economic reconstruction. Chornozem, or black soil, is also entwined with agrarian identities in Ukraine. This paper explores how Ukrainian soil at war is discursively constructed across textual and visual narratives that alternately frame it as an agent shaping the conflict, an environmental and agricultural disaster, a resource to be exploited, or a mere backdrop to more important developments. Drawing on elemental media studies, Ukrainian environmental humanities, and interdisciplinary approaches to soil studies, I argue that these narratives shape our understanding of the war’s environmental costs by drawing attention to some forms of soil damage at the same time as they circumscribe more complex engagements with soil’s human and more-than-human relations. Despite often appearing in the background, the destruction and remediation of soil are central stories of the war and shape both extractivist and restorative imaginaries of Ukraine’s post-conflict future.