During the first two years of the war, from 2022 to 2023, almost 1,600 square kilometres of forest were destroyed in Ukraine—a devastation with environmental, social, and economic consequences that are hard to quantify. The estimate, published in Global Ecology and Conservation, comes from research that combined satellite images of conflict-affected areas with an artificial intelligence system based on machine learning. "Along with the terrible loss of human lives, the war in Ukraine is also causing severe environmental damage, starting with the destruction of vast forested areas," explains Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, professor at the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna, who led the study. According to the analysis system developed by the researchers, 808 square kilometres of forest were lost in Ukraine in 2022 and 772 square kilometres in 2023, mainly in war-affected regions. Researchers attribute much of this forest loss to wildfires. In March 2022, for example, numerous fires broke out in the Kherson region, with Russian troops blocking efforts to extinguish the flames. "Once the war ends, urgent and effective environmental policies will be necessary to halt biodiversity loss, promote reforestation, and restore ecosystems," adds Cazzolla Gatti, who conducted the study together with Rocío Beatriz Cortés Lobos and Duccio Rocchini from the University of Bologna, and Michele Torresani from the Free University of Bolzano.