Urbicide and Environmental Crimes in Ukraine: Feminist Perspectives and Cultural Processing

On October 27 and 28, 2023, the conference “Voices from Ukraine: Women Philosophers and Scientists Against War and Ecocide“ took place. This significant event was organized by Prof. Dr. Kateryna Karpenko, Director of the Center for Gender Education of the National Medical University (KHNMU), and Prof. Dr. Ruth E. Hagengruber, Director of the internationally acting Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. The conference addressed two pressing issues of our time: patriarchal violence and its connection to war and ecocide.

The central focus of the discussion was on the destruction of nature and the role of women in resisting environmental crimes. In the long tradition of women philosophers, reflecting on the destruction of nature holds a central place. In times of war, the destruction of nature often goes hand in hand with the violent oppression of women.

Economic and Political Aspects of Ecocide

Prof. Dr. Olena Dobrovolska, Dnipro State University, Ukraine, and Visiting Professor at the University of Applied Sciences (HTW) Dresden, offered a contribution to the conference with her lecture “Economic and Political Aspects of Ecocide”. Her presentation highlighted how the systematic destruction of the environment during wartime is not merely an ecological catastrophe but also a political and economic weapon. Ecocide, in this context, is used to destabilize regions, disrupt economies, and exert long-term control over populations by destroying the natural resources they depend on.

Dobrovolska emphasized that these acts of environmental violence are deeply intertwined with patriarchal systems of power, which continue to marginalize women and vulnerable groups during and after times of conflict. By analyzing the broader structural dynamics behind ecocide, her contribution shed light on the necessity of feminist resistance that not only calls for environmental justice but also addresses the socio-political mechanisms that enable ecological destruction.

Linguistic Representations of Ecocide in Political Discourse

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Larysa Kovbasyuk of Kherson State University and PSI Fellow at the University of Münster explored in her presentation “The destruction of the Kachovka Dam: a contrastive study of linguistic representation of ecocide in Ukrainian and German political discourse” how language shapes the perception of environmental crimes. Her talk provided a comparative linguistic analysis of political rhetoric in response to the destruction of the Kachovka Dam—one of the most devastating ecological disasters in the context of the war in Ukraine.

Kovbasyuk demonstrated how the term “ecocide” is framed differently in Ukrainian and German political narratives, influencing both public opinion and international responses. Ukrainian discourse tends to frame the destruction in terms of national trauma and environmental injustice, whereas German discourse often adopts a more legalistic and technical tone. Her findings underscored the power of language in cultural processing and revealed how discourse reflects broader political alignments and values. Through her feminist lens, she called for greater sensitivity and solidarity in how ecological devastation is represented and addressed on the global stage.