Governing the Green Transition in Wartime: Exploring Municipal Environmental Capacity in Ukraine

This paper explores how municipalities in wartime Ukraine are approaching the green transition in the context of European integration, decentralisation, and armed conflict. As the country moves through accession negotiations with the European Union while facing full-scale war, Ukrainian municipalities are simultaneously expected to lead emergency recovery and align with modern EU climate and environmental standards. This creates a unique governance challenge: how do local administrations build and apply “green skills” under conditions of institutional disruption, insecurity, and constrained capacity? The research investigates what kinds of knowledge, technical capacity, and strategic planning abilities—collectively referred to as green skills—are emerging at the municipal level in response to these dual pressures. It also examines how local governments interpret EU environmental demands, engage with external donors, and navigate the tension between short-term survival and long-term sustainability goals. The study is grounded in literatures on Europeanisation beyond the nation-state, subnational governance in fragile settings, and environmental state capacity in transition contexts. The paper outlines a mixed-methods research design currently underway. The first phase involves a survey of Ukrainian municipalities, focusing on self-assessed capacity, institutional gaps, and engagement with green transition planning. The second phase will consist of in-depth interviews with municipal officials to explore the underlying political, administrative, and relational dynamics influencing green capacity. The study will also consider the gendered dimension of local environmental governance, recognising the increasing leadership role women have played in municipal management and sustainability initiatives since 2022. By focusing on the subnational level in a highly constrained, geopolitically significant context, the paper contributes to current debates on climate governance under crisis, the role of local authorities in EU integration, and the institutional foundations of sustainable reconstruction in post-war states.