War always harms the environment. As the fog of war produces unreliable data, it also obstructs our capacity to monitor those harms. While some call for more data collection to advance a clear narrative of the origins of environmental harm, sociologists of risk and professional risk assessors find that the urgency of environmental hazards depends not on data alone but on who has the authority to define those risks. Without a clear understanding of how environmental experts engage in the socio-political struggles over the interpretations of risk during armed conflict, we may undervalue, first, how assessments and adequate action remain practically and politically difficult, and second, how data may be misused. Drawing on interviews with environmental experts and reports, I examine the politics of environmental expert knowledge on conflict pollution in the war in Donbas (2014–2022), a region hosting over 4500 hazardous industrial enterprises. By going beyond technological evidence collection, the article broadens our understanding of the obstacles of knowledge production and the attribution of environmental harm in highly politicized and violent contexts. Based on insights from environmental politics, the article finds that experts manage three issues undermining the reliability of environmental risks in an active warzone: pre-existing industrial pollution, environmental damage spread across government and non-government-controlled territories, and disinformation.

中文翻译：

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污染战争：乌克兰东部战时环境损害监测的风险、专家和政治

战争总是会损害环境。由于战争迷雾产生不可靠的数据，它也阻碍了我们监测这些危害的能力。虽然一些人呼吁收集更多数据，以明确说明环境危害的根源，但风险社会学家和专业风险评估人员发现，环境危害的紧迫性不仅取决于数据，还取决于谁有权定义这些风险。如果不清楚地了解环境专家如何参与武装冲突期间风险解释的社会政治斗争，我们可能会低估，首先，评估和适当行动在实际和政治上仍然困难重重，其次，数据可能如何被滥用。根据对环境专家的采访和报告，我研究了环境专家关于顿巴斯战争（2014-2022）中冲突污染的知识的政治性，该地区拥有超过 4500 家危险工业企业。通过超越技术证据收集，本文拓宽了我们对高度政治化和暴力背景下知识生产障碍和环境损害归因的理解。基于环境政治的见解，文章发现，专家们处理了三个破坏活跃战区环境风险可靠性的问题：预先存在的工业污染、政府和非政府控制地区的环境破坏以及虚假信息。