After years of bloody conflict, the scarred Ukrainian landscape is riddled with landmines, posing a deadly threat to civilians that will linger long after the war ends.
With more than 40% of the country contaminated with mines according to one estimate, Ukraine is now believed to be the most heavily mined country in the world.
Newly liberated cities can remain dangerous long after the last Russian forces have been driven out, and Ukrainian defenders discover tripwires and booby traps, as well as ready-to-detonate anti-tank explosives.
“The contamination is massive,” Kateryna Templeton of the Mining Advisory Group tells Sky News.
“It’s not even comparable, I would say, to Syria or Afghanistan. It’s really huge.”
International law prohibits and restricts the use of various mines, particularly those designed to attack people.
Russian forces have been accused by Human Rights Watch of using prohibited antipersonnel mines in the eastern Kharkiv region.
A wide spectrum of mines have been deployed in the Ukraine, including some that have never been seen in combat before.
Ms Templeton continued: “You’ll see anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines, booby traps, you’ll see a lot of unexploded ordnance, you’ll see cluster munitions.
“Everything you can think of you will see in Ukraine.”
Unexploded ordnance and land mines are seen alongside the main road to Kherson in November 2022
Huge increase in mine-related casualties since the February 2022 invasion
Some landmines in Ukraine date back to February 2022, and Russian-backed forces in Donetsk and Lugansk used various devices in 2014-2015 and sporadically in subsequent years, according to Human Rights Watch.
More recently, Russian forces set booby traps set by victims as they withdrew from cities they had occupied during the first weeks of the full-scale invasion.
According to MAG, in the six years between 2014 and 2020 there were 1,190 mine-related casualties in Ukraine.
Between February 24, 2022 and January 10, 2023, less than a year, 611 mine-related victims are known.
After an incident, Two Ukrainian soldiers who had amputations were equipped with state-of-the-art bionic arms Made in the UK.
In addition to directly causing injury and death, mines can make swaths of land inaccessible or more dangerous.
Agricultural production is reportedly affected by the use of landmines in the fields and on rural roads and byways.
A mural in Markariv, Kyiv region, by artist Aleksey Postulga for MAG in an effort to raise awareness in a more hopeful way about the threats posed by mines. Photo: MAG
Postwar cleanup will take years
Ms Templeton says MAG is not focused on investigating whose side is laying the mines, but instead trying to make sure the parties are not using prohibited anti-personnel mines and looking for opportunities to clear contaminated land so people can live longer lives. safe.
The organization began its response by sending a team in April 2022 and began working with local partners.
The Ukrainians will receive training on how to clear mined areas, supervised by MAG experts.
But with the conflict going on for almost a decade in some areas, it will be a laborious and deadly process that will take many years to decontaminate every inch of Ukrainian soil.
