Vast swathes of the country have been vindictively laced with explosives, threatening the civilian population both physically and mentally.
Ukraine, the forest close to Luba’s flat—about 25 kilometers to the west of Kyiv—became first a stronghold and then a graveyard for Russian armor. The invaders’ early push for the capital faltered, and by late March, Ukrainian forces had retaken the area, finding it littered with the remnants of the Russian occupation. Soldiers hadbefore fleeing, abandoning equipment, rubbish, and empty bottles of alcohol looted from nearby gas stations.
That victim was 66-year-old Luba, when she and her husband were foraging for mushrooms. The explosion shredded her calves and feet, and cut a long gash across her stomach. When paramedics arrived, they had no safe way to quickly reach her without potentially triggering another device. Luba died on the way to hospital.
Luba’s death, and others like hers, can feel like tragic accidents—but they are not. Russian soldiers have deliberately left behind booby traps, landmines, and unexploded ordnance while retreating in Ukraine, not to protect themselves, but to spitefully take away the freedom of civilians. Mines are effective at blocking or redirecting enemy troops only when they are monitored by those who set them, explains Mark Hiznay, associate director of the arms division at Human Rights Watch.
At the other end of the spectrum are mines that are placed by hand—even grenades rigged with duct tape and tripwires, like the device that killed Luba. Again, these traps have no strategic value, serving only to terrorize the civilian population—to punctuate every day-to-day decision with fear and doubt ahead of the country being slowly demined.
Despite the risk, history tells us that Ukrainians will return to these contaminated places before they are safe. “People have an attachment to where they come from,” says Ruth Bottomley, a consultant and researcher with 20 years’ experience working in areas contaminated by mines, particularly Cambodia. “Whenever something traumatic happens, people want to get back to what’s normal, to what they’re used to,” she says—even if there’s still a threat.
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