756 ‘hidden traps’ lay bare the evil of Putin’s war in Ukraine

A third of Ukraine is now littered with mines and cluster bombs after almost two years of war (Picture: Getty)

Deep inside Ukraine, hundreds of thousands – ‘if not millions’ – of landmines and unexploded weapons have been hidden.

A third of the territory has been exposed to intense fighting since Vladimir Putin’s invasion in February 2022, and is now believed to be littered with mines and cluster bombs, as well as trip wires, booby traps and grenades concealed in sinister places like children’s toys and kitchen appliances.

This scale of contamination – the largest in Europe since World War II – has slowed Kyiv’s military counteroffensive and resulted in hundreds of people being killed and injured.

From February 26, 2022, until October 19, 2023, 756 such incidents were recorded across Ukraine and the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Donetsk, Kyiv and Kharkiv regions in Ukraine are worst affected (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

Open source information analysed by Metro.co.uk showed that most explosions happened in the Donetsk, Kyiv and Kharkiv regions.

Two thirds of the deaths and injuries were reported this year, as Ukrainian soldiers push into Russian-occupied territories where hidden mines remain a deadly challenge to be reckoned with.

Last week, a toddler was wounded after pieces of shrapnel penetrated her chest and lung during Russian shelling of Kherson, southern Ukraine.

Miia Trishkina, three, was rushed to a hospital in Kyiv where doctors removed a piece of a mine from her heart, saving her life.

Granddad Valerii holds his granddaughter Miia, 3, who is recovering from a surgery that saw a fragment of a Russian mine extracted from her heart (Picture: Ukrinform/Shutterstock)

Heart Institute CEO Boris Todurov shows a fragment of a Russian mine extracted from the heart of Miia (Picture: Ukrinform/Shutterstock)

Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has surpassed Afghanistan and Syria to become the most heavily mined country on Earth, underscoring the ruthlessness and reach of the Russian army.

Anti-mining charity Halo Trust, which is responsible for clearing mines from war zones, stressed that devices have been laid in ‘industrial quantities and will require industrial clearance techniques to remove them.’

In addition, a report by the World Bank and Ukrainian government estimated that the cost of clearing such hazards will cost $38 billion.

Halo has recruited some 1,000 volunteers to carry out the dangerous work across the country.

Finance inspector Oksana Krasiuk, now a deminer with Halo Trust (Picture: Tom Pilston)

Oksana is helping clear the football pitch and nearby woods in the village of Chkalovske (Picture: Tom Pilston)

Amongst them are courageous people like Victoria Manco – a university student, who was training to become a pastry chef before the Russian invasion – who have no past experience in clearing mines.

The 19-year-old, whose dad and brother are serving on the frontline, said a forest surrounding Zolotynka village, in the Chernihiv region, is littered with mines, with grenades ‘tied to trees on tripwires’.

‘Villages here were held for eight weeks by the Russians – when they were evicted, they left many signal mines, grenades tied to trees on tripwires, and anti-tank and anti-personnel mines so it is forbidden to walk in the forest because there have been at least six Ukrainian soldier casualties,’ she said.

‘There is shrapnel everywhere. Before, people used the forest to collect firewood and search for wild mushrooms and nuts but now they cannot access it and it is costing them a lot to buy in firewood so they can heat their homes this winter.’

Trainee confectioner Victoria Manko in theChurnihiv region of Ukraine (Picture: Tom Pilston)

The 19-year-old was studying at university to become a pastry chef and confectioner before the Russian invasion (Picture: Tom Pilston)

Victoria’s dreams of becoming a famous pastry chef have changed since joining the trust.

She said that since volunteering for Halo, she realised that demining is a ‘far more important job’ for her to do right now.

‘I was going to school when the war started, preparing to go to university to study to be a pastry chef,’ she said.

‘My whole family has been involved in the catering business for years and my big dream was to become a chef and to own my own restaurant.

‘I am only 19 and now I do not have that dream, the invasion has changed that and everything else.

‘My dad and brother are both serving in the Ukrainian army on the frontline, so I worry about them every day.

‘It is hard to have any realistic dreams for the future when you do not know what is going to happen on any given day.’

Oksana Krasiuk, a former finance inspector, is now working in Chkalovske village, in the Kharkiv region, where hundreds of plastic mines were scatted by Russians using rocket launchers.

The 37-year-old said explosions from these types of devices normally do not kill people – unless they are vey young children – but maim and injure feet and legs.

‘There are more than ten alone on the football pitch here that used to be used by all the children in the village,’ she added.

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