Yuriy Bengus, a biologist, surveyed a scene of destruction. The Zhuravli forest, on the northern edge of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was a blackened mess. Rooks cawed from burned pine trees and hopped between stumps. A dead bird lay in an abandoned military dugout. War was down the road. From somewhere to the north of Kharkiv came a muffled boom.
Bengus plunged his spade into the sandy earth. “From an ecological point of view, oaks are most suitable,” he said. His assistant, Yulia Kucherevska, a 16-year-old volunteer, reached into a plastic bag, pulling out three acorns that she tossed into a shallow hole. The pair moved on to the next spot and threw in three more. Behind them a No 16 tram rattled past.
