Deconstructing Urban Destruction in Eastern Ukraine

Logan Carmichael

The destroyed old terminal of Donetsk's Sergei Prokofiev International Airport.
Source: Business Insider.

In 2013, Donetsk, Ukraine was host to the IAAF World Youth Athletics Championships, bringing together the best under-17 track and field athletes from around the world.  Past host countries have included Canada, France, Italy, and the Czech Republic, so stability and peace seem to be the key criteria for hosting an international competition of this calibre.  Yet only a year later, eastern Ukraine had descended into a devastating hybrid civil conflict with Donetsk at its epicentre.  The stadium where the championship took place, the airport where athletes arrived and departed, and numerous landmarks throughout the city have been ravaged by violent fighting.  Four years later, Donetsk – and much of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region – remains a war zone.  Urban destruction is an everyday occurrence.  How did a city, a region, and a country that was seemingly stable such a short time ago get so bad, so fast?

RSC Olympskiy Stadium in Donetsk, host to the 2013 IAAF World Youth Athletics Championships.
Thank you to Emma for the photo!

How did this war happen?

Trouble began brewing in late 2013 when Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych turned down an EU Trade Agreement in favour of a Customs Agreement offering a sizeable loan and cheap power from Russia.  Outraged Ukrainians flooded the streets to protest Yanukovych’s decision.  These protests ultimately grew into the Euromaidan Revolution in February 2014, which overthrew the Yanukovych regime.  Capitalizing on unrest in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine’s southeast, following a referendum the following month that the West still considers illegitimate.  By May, pro-Russian factions in eastern Ukraine – the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) – similarly attempted to declare their secession, but faced opposition from the Ukrainian Army, sparking a civil war.  Russian involvement, both directly in Crimea and through backing DPR and LPR rebel forces, has created a complicated and convoluted hybrid conflict in Ukraine.  More than four years later, this conflict remains ongoing; the estimated civilian casualty count is between 7000 and 9000, and destruction remains a daily reality. 

What damage has been done?

The Donbas region of eastern Ukraine is comprised of the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts (oblast = political division; a province or region), with a pre-war population of 8 million people and highly urbanized cities, driven by coal and other extractives industries.  Donetsk, at the centre of this region, received a major facelift – new stadiums, hotels, and a massive airport expansion – in the leadup to the UEFA Euro 2012 soccer championships, hosted jointly in Ukraine and Poland.  The newly reconstructed Sergei Prokofiev International Airport became a symbol of Donetsk.  A year later, Donetsk hosted the IAAF World Youth Athletics championships, and was set to host IIHF World Ice Hockey Championships tier-2 competition in 2015.

By the spring of 2014, however, Donetsk had become a key battleground in the fight between the Ukrainian Army and DNR rebel forces.  Within the Donbas region, it has been the worst hit, with a 20.2% decrease in population density and an estimated 1.25 billion Hryvnas ($70 million NZD/$48 million USD) worth of damage.  For 242 days in late 2014 and early 2015, the Ukrainian Army defended the Donetsk Airport, but were eventually defeated by the DNR in January 2015, with the airport – once a Donetsk icon – in complete ruins.  The Donetsk Airport was far from being the only landmark destroyed in the fighting.

Donetsk Airport

Sergei Prokofiev International Airport, before and after.
Sources: Mashable and The Atlantic.

Sources: The Atlantic and Business Insider.

A world-class international airport and symbol of Donbas modernization just years ago, the Donetsk Airport has been reduced to rubble.   It has been called “a special type of destroyed cultural landscape.”  To watch drone footage of the airport's destruction, click here.

Druzhba Arena

Druzhba Arena, before the conflict.
Sources: XK Donbass and Elite Prospect.

Druzhba Arena on fire, 2014.
Source: Hockey Time.

Druzhba Arena, after the fire.
Sources: Getty Image UK and Kyiv Post.

Druzhba Arena was a multi-purpose ice hockey and basketball arena, pole vault stadium, and concert hall in Donetsk.  It was the location of numerous world record-setting pole vault performances, home to Donetsk’s team in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League, and was set to host tier-2 competition in the IIHF World Ice Hockey Championships in 2015.  In May 2014, the arena was looted and set ablaze by armed forces.

Donbass Arena

Donbass Arena, home to Shakhtar FC before the war.
Sources: The Telegraph and Football Stadiums.

Sources: The Guardian and Live UA Map.

Donbass Arena was home of Donetsk’s Shakhtar FC, host to the UEFA Euro 2012 soccer championships, and Beyonce’s first ever visit to Ukraine on her I Am tour in 2009.  Shakhtar FC was exiled to Lviv, then Kiev, and continues to play in the Premier League, albeit far removed from Donetsk.  Donbass Arena remains structurally intact, but has been severely damaged by artillery shelling throughout the conflict.

General Destruction

Destruction in Donetsk.
Source: Eurasia Daily.

Apart from major landmarks, Donetsk and the greater Donbas region have experienced destruction in residential areas and to infrastructure.  In January 2017, violence surged in Avdiivka, a Donetsk suburb, and shelling numerous homes and cutting off heating and electricity at the height of winter.

Destruction has been widespread and has not spared any part of Donetsk.

Is this destruction urbicide?

Urbicide is “the destruction of the built environment as a distinct form of political violence,” and “violence against a city.”  It is often a psychological tactic that not only destroys buildings and landmarks of cultural significance, but also targets the way of life within that built environment, as a way of weakening the enemy.  Has urbicide occurred in the Donbas region, and in Donetsk?  Absolutely.  Across the Donbas region, the pre-war way of life amongst the civilian population has been severely compromised, with electricity and heating cut off amidst the fighting, often in the cold of winter.  The destruction of the Donetsk Airport has disconnected air transport between Donetsk and the rest of Ukraine and the world, while also robbing the city of its previously recognizable symbol.  Sport, once a mainstay in Donetsk, has been completely driven out of the city.  Professional teams have relocated to other parts of the country due to compromised safety amid the conflict.  Numerous sports arenas have been damaged or destroyed in an attack on not only the built environment, but also the roots of sporting community in Donetsk.  The violent realities of Donetsk and the Donbas region today are a far cry from the urbanized, secure, host of myriad international competitions just five years ago.

Is there a brighter future ahead for the Donbas region?

Four (plus) years into the Ukrainian conflict, it doesn’t appear that a resolution is anywhere in sight, as two Minsk Protocols, negotiated by Ukraine, Russia, and members of the OSCE to impose a ceasefire in Ukraine, have failed and the war rages on.  The conflict in Ukraine has re-ignited Cold War-era tensions between Russia and the West, with little prospect for diplomatic cooperation in the immediate future.  As long as this fighting continues, so too will the urban destruction and urbicide that have swept eastern Ukraine.  Despite this bleak prognosis, there is hope: that fighting will not flare up as it did in Avdiivka in early 2017, and that an effective ceasefire will eventually be brokered.  When this happens, then a battered Donbas region can begin to rebuild.

There is hope for eastern Ukraine to rebuild and return to its pre-war glory
(shown here during the 2013 IAAF World Youth Athletics Championship).