France, Oct. 28 -- Nearly one million hectares of land in Ukraine have gone up in smoke this year as the Russian invasion turns forests into battlefields and leaves nature badly scarred.The fires follow the front line, raise fears of war crimes and add to a growing climate bill.

Satellite data shows close to 9,000 fires consuming 965,000 hectares, including a third of farmland. That is almost double the area burned across the entire European Union over the same period.

The EU Joint Research Centre confirms 2024 as a record year, the worst for Ukrainian forests in more than 30 years. A complex battlefield

A joint investigation by The Guardian and the Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Independent shows the devastation is directly linked to the in...