LANDSCAPE SCIENCE IN UKRAINE: THE CURRENT STATE AND TRENDS STUDIA KRAJOBRAZOWE NA UKRAINIE: STAN OBECNY I TENDENCJE

The state of landscape science in Ukraine has been considered since the early 2000s, when, moving away from the Soviet canons of this science, it acquired its own face and its leaders. From that time until now, two general trends in the development of Ukrainian landscape science have been set: expansion in the field of landscape research and strengthening the theoretical foundations of its concept. Currently, in Ukraine the landscape is studied in three academic areas—landscape science, landscape ecology and transdisciplinary geoecology. There are different points of view on their essence and correlation among Ukrainian scientists, and they are discussed in the article. There is also no consensus on understanding the concept of the landscape, because there are at least three interpretations of it: the landscape as a general metascientific category, the landscape as a real object, and the landscape as a representation or an image of reality. The article discusses the current state, gaps and prospects for the development of landscape science in Ukraine regarding the main problem areas of this science, namely landscape theory, landscape mapping

Landscape science in Ukraine is discussed in several publications (Melnyk, 2004;Мikheli, 2014a;Hrynevetskyi et al., 2017;Denysyk et al., 2022).They mainly cover the history of this science in Ukraine, but do not specifically consider its current state and trends.The proposed article fills this gap.It is also aimed at familiarizing European landscape ecologists with the works of Ukrainian colleagues, which are published in Ukrainian and therefore are less known in the West.

ROOTS AND THE BEGINNING OF MODERN LANDSCAPE SCIENCE IN UKRAINE
Ukrainian landscape science ("landshaftoznavstvo") has deep roots.Its founders were such prominent scholars of the early 20th century, as Tutkovskyі, Vysotskyі, Rudnytskyі, Pogrebnyak and others.In particular, the Ukrainain scientist Pavlo Tutkovskyi, a direct descendant of Zaporozhian Cossacks, was the first in Eastern Europe to define the landscape as a scientific concept and the main object of physical geography.According to his definition of 1910, the landscape is a natural integrity formed by the interaction of relief, hydrography, surface sediments, soils, flora and fauna (Tutkovskyi, 1910) 1 .After World War II, owing to the efforts of Herenchuk and Miller (Lviv University), Marynych and Shyshchenko (Kyiv University), and Voropay (Chernivtsi University), Ukrainian landscape science 1 Nevertheless, Russian geographers claim that the first scientist in Eastern Europe to define the landscape as a scientific concept was Lev Berg from St. Petersburg (see Isachenko, 1991); however, Berg did so in 1913, three years later than Tutkovskyi.was recognized as one of the influential scientific schools in the former USSR.However, in its theoretical basis, it did not differ much from the background of Russian landscape science with its commitment to the genetic approach, whereby the landscape structure is considered to be "objective" and singular, and is mainly reduced to the hierarchical mosaic of discrete landform (relief) elements (e.g., Isachenko, 1991).The departure from its traditions and canons, which began in the mid-1980s, can be considered the beginning of the formation of Ukrainian landscape science with its distinct face.
A turning point on the way to modern Ukrainian landscape science can be seen a collective article by Kyiv and Odessa geographers, in which the genetic concept of landscape that dominated Soviet geography was questioned and replaced by a polystructural principle of the landscape (Shvebs et al., 1986).The principle states: elementary spatial landscape units are interconnected by different types of spatial relationships (biotic migrations, surface water runoff, solids transfer, evolutionary relationships, etc.), each of which organizes them into a specific spatial structure; therefore, the same landscape has several spatial structures, each of which should be represented by its own map.At the last All-Soviet conference on landscape science (in 1987 in Lviv) this idea was rejected by most Soviet geographers.However, it was on this theoretical basis that Ukrainian landscape scientists later began to compile landscape maps and apply them into land planning and land management (Methodological guidelines, 1990;Grodzynskyi, Shyshchenko, 1993;Kruhlov, 2000).This brought Ukrainian landscape science closer to the European landscape ecology with its conceptions of the types of spatial landscape structures (Haase, 1976) and North American ideas on landscape mosaic and heterogeneity (Forman, 1995).

SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND INSTITUTIONAL ORGANIZATION
The formation of modern Ukrainian landscape science coincided with the emergence of an independent Ukrainian state and the transition from communism, which was accompanied by economic difficulties.The latter had a devastating effect on science.Field landscape research, the "engine" and "heart" of landscape science, was almost non-existent in the 1990s and early 2000s due to lack of funding.In the same period, authoritative Ukrainian landscape scientists, such as Miller, Shvebs, Marynych, Nekos, Fedirko passed away.Nevertheless, despite these losses and difficulties, landscape science in Ukraine continued its development.Moreover, it increasingly acquired its characteristic features.In a few words, they can be characterized as follows: to expand (up to transdisciplinarity) and strengthen (down to philosophical and metascientific foundations) the concept of the landscape, while retaining its understanding as a spatial geographical phenomenon.The study of landscapes in Ukraine remains the prerogative of geography, more precisely, of physical geography.

SCIENCES ABOUT A LANDSCAPE
Currently, landscape research in Ukraine is carried out within three academic areas-landscape science ("landshaftoznavstvo") as part of physical geography, landscape ecology as the interface between spatial ecology and physical geography, and geoecology in its transdisciplinary meaning.At the same time, the boundaries between these areas are not clearly established, their essence remains debatable in Ukraine, and many scientists do not uniquely identify themselves with only one of them.There were several attempts to find out the specifics of these scientific areas and the relationship between them in Ukraine (Pashchenko, 1999;Grodzynskyi, 2005Grodzynskyi, , 2014;;Melnyk, 2008;Shyshchenko, Gavrylеnko, 2016;Kruhlov, 2020).However, a generally accepted point of view has not yet been formed.
Grodzynskyi proposes the following distinction between these three scientific fields (Grodzynskyi, 2005(Grodzynskyi, , 2014)).The difference between landscape science and landscape ecology does not consist in the object of their study (for both it is the same and it is a landscape), but in various methodological approaches to it.Landscape ecology is an object-subject science and explores the spatial processes, structures, dynamics, meanings and values of the landscape, that are important in terms of its subjects (they can be living bodies, as well as some spatial physical processes, such as erosion, geochemical migration, etc.).The landscape is studied through the "eyes" of its subjects, as a heterogeneous arena of their existence.Landscape ecology studies, simulates, maps, and evaluates only that in a landscape that is important for its particular subject.Instead, landscape science studies the landscape per se, as such in itself, as an objective reality, regardless of its subjects.There is no point in arguing which science is better, both study the landscape from different positions and therefore are useful and should coexist.Geoecology, from his point of view, is not a science, but a general methodological approach to solving environmental problems if it is based on taking into account the interconnections of natural phenomena and their dependence on spatial heterogeneity.Both landscape science and landscape ecology can contribute a lot to this geoecological approach, moreover, they should be its theoretical basis.Melnyk (1957Melnyk ( -2020) ) proposed another solution.He believes that there are two trends in the interaction between geography and ecology.The first is the use of theoretical principles and methods of ecology to landscapes, that is, landscape ecology.The second trend is the application of geography to solve the problems of human ecology, which resulted in such sciences as geoecology and ecogeography.Landscape science is an independent science within physical geography.It studies landscapes as objective geographical phenomena (Melnyk, 2008).A similar point of view is shared by Shyshchenko and Gavrylenko (2016).
Kruhlov in his latest monograph sets out his vision of the nature of landscape sciences and their relationship (Kruhlov, 2020).In his opinion, geoecology has many faces depending on its basis and approach.It could be just a multidisciplinary approach, if the geographical disciplines involved use an ecological approach, but do not have a common conceptual basis, in particular a single theoretical object of study.Instead, transdisciplinary geoecology is a holistic science that deals with the geospatial dimension of ecological processes, uses methods of different geographic and ecological disciplines, and integrates them on the basis of the concept of total geoecosystem.Landscape ecology is understood as an integral part of geoecology, as "local terrestrial geoecology".It concerns the study of the landscape as a whole, but in fact focuses on the importance of its heterogeneity for the distribution and behavior of living organisms and, above all, animals.Landscape science, in his opinion, is also part of geoecology, which deals with purely natural studies of landscapes as natural spatial phenomena.Kruhlov also expresses the opinion that the term «landscape science» should be considered outdated and should be avoided, since the word «landscape» has many and ambiguous interpretations.
Summarizing the above points of view, one can conclude that at present Ukrainian landscape experts agree that there are several sciences about it, they complement each other and therefore their coexistence is fruitful.Landscape science is considered primarily as a natural geographical science, and landscape ecology as a more ecologized study of a landscape.Both of these sciences can be attributed to geoecology as an extensive practice-oriented interdisciplinary science or scientific approach.

THE CONCEPT OF THE LANDSCAPE
As in world science, the concept of the landscape in modern Ukrainian landscape science has different interpretations.Despite their diversity, three lines of understanding of this concept can be traced: the landscape as a general metascientific category, the landscape as a real object, and the landscape as a mental construct or a representation of reality.
The understanding of the landscape as a general scientific category that has the same wide metascientific status as the concept of a "system" is discussed in the works (Grodzynskyi, 2005;Tyutyunnyk, 2019).Both scientists believe that the recent expansion of the term «landscape» into such disciplines as cosmology and astrophysics, neuropsychology, linguistics, genetics and other is not accidental.It reflects the need of science for a concept that is more complex, less rigid and formalized, more "spatial" than the concept of a system or a complex.
Based on the analysis of various interpretations of the landscape concept in geography and other sciences, Grodzynskyi gives its general definition: the landscape is part of a space whose patterns, images, meanings and values are formed by the configuration of places connected with each other by a particular type of relationship (Grodzynskyi, 2005).He shows that the existing understanding of the landscape in various sciences and arts is only a specific interpretation (adaptation) of this general definition to the essence of the phenomena they study.In particular, in physical geography, the landscape is treated as part of the geographical sphere, where different substances, bodies and processes are interconnected in their location and development, forming spatial patterns with their characteristic image and changes over time (Grodzynskyi, Savytska, 2008).
Tyutyunnyk, analyzing the methodological, semantic and epistemological aspects of the landscape concept and its "proliferation" (extensions beyond geography) expresses a similar idea (Tyutyunnyk, 2019).However, he believes that the term "landscape" should still retain its historically established geographical content.In order to designate its metascientific essence, the term "landscapity" is proposed (in Polish it can be called "krajobrazowość").In the author's words, the landscapity "is a geographical view of the world, regardless of the size of this world" (Tyutyunnyk, 2019, p. 35).He believes, that the concept of landscapity will expand the scientific category of landscape and use it to search for new, non-standard, unexpected meanings.
The understanding of the landscape as a real object, a real material tangible "fragment" of geographical space was dominant in the Soviet era.However, in modern Ukrainian landscape studies, it is losing its position.Currently, it is still supported by landscape scientists from the Institute of Geography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Davydchuk et al., 2011;Sorokina et al., 2017).
The majority of modern landscape scientists in Ukraine consider the landscape as an image, model, construct, representation of the real world, which is available for study or perception.For example, Kovalyov defines the landscape as an image of the terrain, the surface structure of which is determined by a certain organizing (landscape-forming) process (Kovalyov, 2006).
Understanding the landscape as an image or construct, Ukrainian landscape scientists believe that there is some complex phenomenon from which the landscape is perceptually, cognitively or conceptually extracted.It is so complex and multifaceted that it cannot be directly studied in all its complexity.Pashchenko (1999) calls it "georeal" (from geographical reality), Kovalyov (2006) -the environment and its active surface.Kruhlov calls this a complex reality landscape and defines it as associations of different physical, biotic, and societal phenomena of the earth's surface differentiated in space and time (Kruhlov, 2020).The landscape can be studied using its various spatial representations, which Kruhlov calls geoecosystems.Depending on what properties and relations of the landscape are considered, several different special geoecosystems can be built-physical morphogenic and transmorphogenic, biotic, social, etc.The proposed conceptualization and the methodology based on it Kruhlov considers the implementation of the principle of landscape polystructurality.
The theoretical developments of Tyutyunnik relate to the philosophical substantiation of the concept of the landscape (Tyutyunnyk, 2011(Tyutyunnyk, , 2019)).In particular, he addresses issues such as dimensions and scale levels of the landscape; levels of the organization of the world on which the landscape manifests itself and forms these manifestations; the interpretation of the landscape as a machine in the understanding of Deleuze and Guattari; the representation of the landscape in terms of set theory; the integrity and holisiticity of the landscape; the vitality of the landscape, anti-landscapes and landscapes of the absurd, etc.In his theoretical considerations, Tyutyunnik relies widely on 20th century philosophers, such as Bachelard, Merleau-Ponty, Nancy, Deleuze and Guattari, Podoroga, Foucault, Heidegger, Nietzsche and others.
The main idea of Kovalev is that the landscape is an integral phenomenon (the image of the surface), which in principle cannot be divided into its parts (Kovalyov, 2005(Kovalyov, , 2009)).He considers the traditional approach of landscape analysis by identifying its components, elements, and territorial units of various levels to be a big mistake.The description of the landscape, in addition to scientific, contains such aspects as phenomenological, aesthetic, sacred and others related to the human factor.The landscape, as an image, arises in recipients when they perceive the pattern of the earth's surface.This pattern arises as a result of the action of the geosystem, which the author understands as an organization of in-terrelated elementary biopohysical processes.Humans can interfere with the geosystem, which, in particular, can lead to the formation of landscape patterns that negatively affect the use of the environment.Like Tyutyunnik, Kovalev makes extensive use of philosophical thought in his theoretical constructions.
Petlin, over the past two decades has published more than 10 fundamental monographs on the theoretical issues of landscape science (Petlin 2013(Petlin , 2016(Petlin , 2019(Petlin , 2020 and so on) and so on).They are devoted to various forms of systemic organization in landscapes-integrity, holisticity, symmetry, organization and self-organization, hierarchy, coherence, dynamics, and so on.Unlike his Ukrainian fellow theorists, he considers the landscape as a real spatial object, but studies it with the help of rather abstract formalized constructions and conceptions.Petlin uses modern philosophical literature to a lesser extent and relies more on the work of systems theorists: Bertalanffy, Wiener, Prigogine, Haken and others.He also draws heavily on the experience of applying systems theory in other natural sciences-biology, physics, geology.
Pashchenko's research concerns not so much the theoretical issues of the landscape as the theory of science about it-its general and special methodology, the scientific language of landscape science and the correctness of the terminology, the essence of such processes as ecologization, formalization, humanization of landscape science, what is sustainable development in the light of the concept of landscapes (Pashchenko, 1999(Pashchenko, , 2000)).According to Pashchenko, science will give significant results and open up new horizons for itself and society only if it has a developed methodology built according to the rules of scientology.With regard to this issue, as Pashchenko states, not everything is going well in landscape science (Pashchenko, 2020).
The theoretical views of Grodzynskyi are mainly presented in his two-volume book (Grodzynskyi, 2005).In addition to understanding the landscape as a concept that belongs not only to geography, but also to universal culture, and considering various interpretations of the landscape (physico-geographical, cultural, political, aesthetic, etc.), much attention is paid to the concept of a landscape place and organization of places into territorial patterns, configurations and structures.Grodzynskyi defines the landscape spatial structure as a configuration of places, ordered by a certain type of structure-forming relations between them.He developed a typology of landscape spatial structures based on the correspondence of territorial configurations to the types of structure-forming relations.For the main types of these structures (genetic-morphological, morphodynamic, paragenetic, basin and biocentric-network) he proposed a taxonomy of territorial units and criteria for their mapping and typology.
In addition to the reviewed monographs, the theoretical issues of landscape are considered in numerous articles by such Ukrainian authors as Chervanyov, Korzhyk, Kyselyov, Melnyk, Shyshchneko, Volovyk, and others.

LANDSCAPE MAPPING
Many Ukrainian landscape scientists believe that if not all, then most of the tasks of their science require the use of a landscape map.Therefore, landscape mapping is traditionally given special attention.The leaders in the field of landscape mapping in Ukraine have traditionally been the Faculty of Geography of the Lviv National University and the Institute of Geography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.If Lviv landscape scientists compile landscape maps mainly for the Carpathian region (Melnyk, 1999(Melnyk, , 2008;;Mukha, 2003), then their Kyiv colleagues are interested in the landscapes of Central Ukraine, and especially the region polluted after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 (Davydchuk et al., 2011).In recent years they have focused on creating a medium-scale map (1:500 000) for the entire territory of Ukraine (Sorokina et al., 2017).As part of this ambitious project, a series of landscape maps (1: 200 000) were compiled for the least explored regions of Ukraine (for a review of these works see Hrynevetskyi et al., 2017).
Landscape mapping in Ukraine is understood as delimitation of the area into its natural landscape units ("geocom plexes") of various hierarchical level.Unlike Western landscape ecology, land cover classes from the CORINE Land Cover project or similar are not considered landscape spatial units, although they are sometimes used to assess the extent of landscape anthropization.

LANDSCAPE DYNAMICS
Studying of landscape dynamics is perhaps a gap in modern Ukrainian landscape science.Before the economic crisis of the 1990s, a system of stationary stations for studying landscape dynamics was successfully functioning in Ukraine (at Chornohora, Roztochia, Yezupil, Kaniv, Dymer, Shatsk, and some other sites).However, at present, only landscape stations at Chornohora and Roztochia are still in operation studying landscape dynamics on daily, seasonal, and long-term time scales.Among the most interesting results, one should mention the response of landscapes to climate change, established at the Roztochia station (Mukha, 2008), and spatiotemporal interactions at the boundaries between facies at the Chornohora station as well as other theoretical generalizations about the organization of facies (Petlin, 2016).However, the general trend in the study of landscape dynamics is to replace the registration of landscape dynamics in situ (at stationary stations) with its study using long-term remote methods of time series analysis, which make it possible to track and predict spatiotemporal transformations of landscapes (Kruhlov, 2020).

LANDSCAPES ANTHROPIZATION
The history and the current state of studies on anthropogenic changes of landscapes in Ukraine are discussed (Denysyk, 2013;Mikheli, 2014b).Several partially incompatible methodological approaches are used in this scientific field.Geographers of Vinnytsia University headed by Professor Hryhorij Denysyk adhere to the concept of "anthropogenic landscape", formulated in the 1970s by Milkov (Milkov, 1973).In accordance with this idea, a landscape is considered anthropogenic if at least one of its components has been modified by man.Landscapes are classified mainly according to their economic function; when mapping anthropogenic landscapes, both natural and anthropogenic boundaries and lines are taken into account.The interested reader can find the results of this approach in monographs devoted to the anthropogenic landscapes of various regions of Ukraine (Denysyk, 1988;Serednje Prydinstrovja, 2007;Vorovka, 2022).
Another concept of human-landscape interactions has been formulated as "anthropogenic landscape modifications" (Pashchenko, 1999;Melnyk, 2008).It says that the landscape is primarily a natural phenomenon and can be modified rather than created by human activity.When mapping anthropogenically modified landscapes, any man-made boundaries, lines and patterns are not taken into account.Instead, the issue of assessing the degree of anthropogenic landscape modification is of particular interest.Various methods for this assessment and mapping of landscape anthropization have been proposed and tested for the territory of Ukraine and its individual regions (for review see Samoylenko, Dibrova, 2021).
An extensive literature is devoted to anthropogenic changes in the landscapes of Ukraine.On a national scale, they are described in several monographs (Gavrylenko, 2008;Denysyk, 2015).

LANDSCAPES IN ITS HUMANITARIAN DIMENSIONS
In Soviet times, any research on the humanistic themes of the landscape was, if not prohibited, then at least not welcomed.The situation changed dramatically after Ukraine gained independence.There was literally an explosion in the number of publications related to various «humanitarian» dimensions of a landscape-its meanings and values (Grodzynskyi, 2005;Kovalyov, 2009), humanistic potential of a landscape (Pashchenko, 2000), landscape history and "landscape historical science" (Romanchuk, 1998;Korzhyk, 2009), landscape perception, its aesthetic qualities and image (Grodzynskyi, Savytska, 2005;Kovalyov, 2009), mapping of visual landscape attributes (Kulachkovskyi, Kruhlov, 2016) and many others.
In general, the humanization of the Ukrainian landscape science has become a powerful trend in the study of landscapes.In a short time, Ukrainian landscape scientists managed to fill the gap in this area.Some "landscape-humanitarian" research directions have developed to such an extent that this gave rise to considering them as sciences.An example is the study of ethnic and multi-ethnic landscapes, the interaction of ethnicity and the landscape, ethnic landscape markers, etc., which eventually formed a broad scientific direction, which its followers declare as a science.Romanchuk (2005) calls it ethnic geoecology, and Volovyk (2013) -ethno-cultural landscape science.
At the same time, some research themes need further developments.In particular, Ukrainian studies on the assessment of the aesthetic values of landscapes are not original and only duplicate the well-known works of their Western colleagues.The few cultural landscape studies suffer from the same shortcoming, and research on landscape character assessment has not yet begun in Ukraine.

LANDSCAPE PLANNING
Landscape planning in Ukraine is a relatively new area of applied landscape research.It began its active development at the beginning of 2010 with the launch of pilot projects together with German colleagues.In general, Ukrainian developments in landscape planning are based on the methodological and practical experience of Germany (Landschaftsplanung, 2004).The Institute of Geography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is the leading institution in this field (Rudenko et al., 2014;Golubtsov, 2021).The Cherkasy region in Central Ukraine served as a research polygon, where methodological approaches to landscape planning were tested at various hierarchical levels.Further perspectives for landscape planning research in Ukraine are stimulated by the implementation of a new spatial planning instrument in 2021, namely the Integrated Plan for Spatial Development of a Community.According to this piece of legislation, the landscape plan is defined as the scientific basis for the environmentally oriented development of the territory of the community.
Maksymenko elaborated and tested the principles and methods of landscape-ecological planning for the Kharkiv region.Her approach is remarkable in that it uses modern concepts and methods of landscape ecology and geomatics, such as assessing the fractal dimensions of landscape patterns, its diversity, level of mosaicity, ecosystem services, environmental conflicts and so on (Maksymenko, 2017).
Geographers of Kyiv University have developed a scientific approach on "landscape-ecological substantiation of land management projects" (Shyshchenko, Gavrylenko, 2014).Unlike landscape planning and landscape-ecological planning, its object is not the territory of the landscape, but projects for its use (of land melioration, urban development, recreation, etc.).In fact, the three approaches described are complementary rather than competitive.

MODELING IN LANDSCAPE SCIENCE
At the present stage of development of landscape science in Ukraine, mathematical modeling based on a deterministic approach has given way to methods of probability theory, stochastic modeling and fuzzy sets theory.Grodzynskyi applied probabilistic modeling for a quantitative assessment of landscape stability and a risk assessment adopting the theory of reliability of technical systems to landscapes (Grodzynskyi, 1995).To predict possible transformations of the landscape pattern for different time periods, he developed a stochastic modeling technique based on calculating the transition probabilities between the stages of landscape development and constructing Markov chains (Grodzynskyi, 2014).
Samoilenko developed and verified the methodological foundations and tools of geoinformation stochastic modeling of geosystems of different types (river basin, coastal, econet, urban and so on) for making decisions on their ecological rehabilitation and sustainable use (Samoilenko, 2002;Samoilenko, Dibrova, 2019).Fuzzy set logic was applied for the identification and mapping of morpho-dynamic landscape units and their patterns (Svidzinska, 2011).
Computer modeling of landscape dynamics and spatial patterns has recently emerged in Ukrainian landscape science.In particular, to predict the further evolution of the forest landscape of the Ukrainian Carpathians, Kruhlov and colleagues used the LANDIS-II simulator (originally developed by Scheller et al., 2007), which was calibrated for four possible scenarios of climate change.The simulations were aimed at tracing the evolution of the tree species composition and the volumes of aboveground live carbon in landscapes (Kruhlov et al., 2018).

PHYSICAL-GEOGRAPHICAL (=LANDSCAPE) REGIONALIZATION
Physical-geographical regionalization has traditionally been considered in Ukraine as part of landscape science.Therefore, it is often called landscape regionalization.It has always been an important topic for Ukrainian landscape scientists.The scheme of landscape regionalization developed by the end of the 1980s has undergone a number of changes over the past 20 years.The most important development concerns the broadleaf forest zone in the East European Plain.If in earlier schemes of the physical-geographical regionalization of Ukraine such a zone was not shown at all, then the existence of such a zone was proved here and its borders were shown on the map (Marynych, Shyshchenko, 2006).Its authors believe that the zone of broadleaf forest landscapes is present only to the west of the Dnieper river while its eastern border corresponds to the border between the western and eastern parts of the Podolian Upland.However, Grodzynskyi argues that its range is much larger and with its two strips (northern mesophytic and southern xeromesophytic oak forests) reaches the Dnieper river.In the east of the Dnieper river the northern strip narrows while the southern one breaks up into numerous patches of broadleaf landscapes, forming a wide forest-steppe zone (Grodzynskyi, 2020).In addition to updating the physical-geographical regionalization of the entire territory of Ukraine, the detailed (on the level of microregions) schemes of landscape regionalization have recently been composed for the Ukrainian Carpathians (Melnyk, 1999;Kruhlov, 2008), Kharkiv Oblast (Maksimenko et al., 2016) and many other regions of Ukraine.The most "radical" is the proposition to consider not one, but two steppe zones in Southern Ukraine-the true steppe zone (chernozem soils predominate) and the dry steppe zone, where chestnut soils are dominant (Kryvulchenko, 2005).
Despite the achievements in the physical-geographical regionalization of Ukraine, there are issues still to be addressed.They include, in particular, the harmonization of physical-geographical regionalization schemes with similar schemes for the territory of Europe and countries adjacent to Ukraine; considering not only zonal, but also meridional-sectoral features of spatial differences in landscapes; further clarification of the boundaries of the broadleaf forest zone, and the boundaries between the steppe and forest-steppe zones.The taxonomic status of the Fore-Carpathian region is also unclear, since reasonable grounds have been put forward to consider foothill landscapes of the same hierarchical level as mountain and plain landscapes (Chernega, 2004).

INSTEAD OF THE SUMMARY: THE WAR, THE LANDSCAPES, AND LANDSCAPE SCIENCE IN UKRAINE
The madness of the war launched by Russia against Ukraine lies not only in its inhumanity, but also in the deliberate destruction of its landscapes, in what can be called "landscapecide".Ukrainian landscapes of an outstanding natural value (for example, in unique biosphere reserves in the south of Ukraine) and cultural value (for example, the urban landscapes of the modernist center of Kharkov, of medieval Chernihiv) have been endangered, vast areas of ordinary landscapes have been polluted, burned by fires, dotted with craters from bombs and rockets, their biodiversity is under threat.Therefore, the task of Ukraine is not only to win the war, but also to restore its landscapes.This task requires participation of landscape scientists.The complexity of the challenges facing them will stimulate the development of innovative approaches and the search for non-standard solutions.This will contribute not only to the applied landscape research, but also to the development of landscape science theory.The scale of the upcoming tasks will require the efforts of not only Ukrainian, but also of international landscape science.Without international cooperation, the restoration of Ukraine's landscapes will be practically impossible.
Post-war Ukraine can become a "testing ground" for the implementation of ambitious national and international projects for rehabilitation, planning, beautification, and creation of sustainable landscapes.