‘We’ve lost some parts of nature for ever’: Ukraine war’s impact on environment – photo essay

Volunteers and firefighters work to extinguish a fire at a shopping centre after a rocket attack in Kremenchuk. It took 300 emergency workers more than four hours to extinguish the blaze. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

Since 2022, the Guardian photographer Alessio Mamo has been tracking the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Kremlin’s full-scale invasion, which began three years ago on Monday, caused millions of Ukrainians to flee. Cities have been flattened, villages occupied and lives destroyed. At least 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and many more injured in Europe’s biggest conflict since the second world war.

• Aerial view of craters caused by rocket fire in a field in the liberated area between Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. Ammunition and missile residues in these craters may become a source of chemical pollution that could reach the groundwater