Massive Ukrainian effort underway to clear millions of landmines spread across country

No matter how Russia’s war in Ukraine In the end, Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov will fight for years against the madness of Vladimir Putin. Kuznetzov is a Ukrainian surgeon and national hero who stood by his patients when they were attacked. However, heroism is a virtue that must endure. His town has been liberated, but Dr. Kuznetzov sees casualties every week or so: civilians stepping on one of millions of Russian landmines spread across about a third of Ukraine. There is a massive effort to clear mines, but it will take a generation or more. In the meantime, there will be Dr. Kuznetzov, with healing hands and eyes that have seen too much.

He devoted half his life to the central hospital and here, in his basement, under Putin’s bombs, everything he had become in 52 years was put to the service of his house.

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): Until the end, we did not imagine that Russia would attack our country. When you’re sitting in a basement at night and a plane flies overhead, it was impossible to predict whether you would wake up to see another day.

In 2022, the basement became Dr. Kuznetzov’s operating room. It’s him dressed in white. The injured were countless: the wife of a close friend whom he was unable to save and this man, who was shot and survived.

Scott Pelley: Have you saved more patients than you lost?

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): We certainly saved many more people.

Scott Pelley: Many of your colleagues were evacuated and you didn’t do it. I wonder why you stayed.

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): When you have patients and you are the only doctor or the only person who can treat them, I didn’t understand how you could leave.

He couldn’t leave Izioum. His town of 40,000 inhabitants was occupied for six months. The Russians laid mines here while fleeing the Ukrainian counterattack. Putin’s unprovoked war against an innocent people destroyed 80 percent of Izium and killed 1,000 people, leaving apartment buildings split in two and this school, built in 1882, a hollow corpse.

The people of Izioum dress in liberation and yet, they are not entirely free.

Here, mine clearance teams are still fighting Russia. Izium, 32 kilometers from the front, is one of the areas most affected by mines and unexploded ordnance. Across Ukraine, more than 1,000 civilians have been injured by mines. Lidia Borova, a 70-year-old widow, was picking mushrooms in a forest.

Lidia Borova (translation): I turned around near the tree and then there was an explosion. I looked down at myself (down) and I was bleeding, my arm was hurt, my leg was hurt. I was losing strength.

His right foot and ankle were torn off.

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): First of all, the most difficult thing is to convince a patient that his leg should be amputated. It’s very difficult to explain to them that the leg is useless, that it serves no purpose

He told us that a prosthesis is ultimately easier to live with.

Lidia Borova (translation): Dr. Kuznetzov saved me. I didn’t realize how much blood I had lost. I don’t know how I managed to survive.

Ihor Bogoraz was with his wife in their garden. They found 12 mines. But there were 13.

Ihor Bogoraz (translation): I decided to mow the weeds. And one (mine) was under my foot. I stepped on it and it exploded instantly. And that’s it – no leg.

Serhii Nikolaiv walked through the autumn leaves while discovering the vines for spring.

Serhii Nikolaiv (translation): If it was green, I would have noticed it. But it was brown – I didn’t see it. He blended into the leaves. I stepped on it. And I knew it right away.

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): The majority are those who have stepped on “Petals” (mines) or anti-personnel mines – whoever invented them was an evil genius because they only weigh (two ounces) but what they can do when triggered is terrifying.

Mines of petals, 5 inches long, float by the thousands from the planes, like flower petals. Eleven pounds of pressure will set them off.

Vasyl Solyanik found them on his roof and in his garden.

Vasyl Solyanik (translation): There are 18 here, but in total there were more than 50.

He showed us his video. It’s a mine of petals there. They are so common that we were told the story of a 70-year-old woman who collected them in a basket and took them to the police station.

Vasyl Solyanik (translation): There are a few left in the bushes around here, so don’t wander around there.

He dialed 101 and the emergency services sent bomb squads Ivan Shepelev and Ihor Ovcharuk.

Ihor Ovcharuk (translation): We encounter all types of munitions – anti-infantry and anti-tank mines, mortars, artillery shells (rockets). It’s all here.

At Solyanik’s home, a search revealed an unexploded cluster bomb. It’s delicate. So they blew it up.

Ivan Shepelev told us that when the Russians fled, they also left traps.

Ivan Shepelev (translation): Unfortunately, we have seen cases where explosives were found in civilian homes.

Ihor Ovcharuk (translation): My (team) also had to work on the evacuation of our dead Ukrainian soldiers whose bodies had been mined.

In 2022, Ihor Ovcharuk’s kneecap was shattered when a fellow deminer stepped on a mine and lost his foot.

Ivan Shepelev (translation): We know that every explosive we remove means that someone’s life is saved.

A few weeks after our visit, a Russian missile destroyed the fire station where they are based. Some were injured but not Shepelev or Ovcharuk.

Scott Pelley: How big is the mine threat in Ukraine?

Pete Smith: I think the scope is unrecognizable in modern times.

Pete Smith here leads mine clearance for the HALO Trust, a charity founded in 1988 to clear mines in war zones. Smith was 33 years in the British Army and was rewarded by Queen Elizabeth for disarming an IRA time bomb at a train station. Today, he says, Ukraine is the most mined country.

Pete Smith: In some areas the minefields are three or four mines deep, and in others a dozen mines deep. But that’s only the first line of defense. Then, several kilometers behind, there are other layers of minefields as well.

Smith took us to a farm strewn with Russian anti-tank mines. You must tread carefully. Right there in the center is a mine filled with 17 pounds of high explosive. With three weeks of training behind her, Yulia Yaroshchuk was looking for a tripwire that could detonate a mine near her. She pulled on the grass… feeling the slightest resistance. Just the day before, a HALO deminer was killed and two others injured in another region of Ukraine.

Scott Pelley: Doing this by hand with this wand, it seems to me that you have an extremely wide field to cover.

Yulia Yaroshchuk (translation): Of course. This will be a very long process. As far as I know, this will take many, many years. Every day (of war) means years of mine clearance.

Scott Pelley: Why do you do this work?

Yulia Yaroshchuk (translation): I didn’t have to do it. I wanted to do it. This is my contribution to victory.

Scott Pelley: Will Ukraine ever be mine-free?

Pete Smith: I think what I saw during my time in Ukraine was innovation, patriotism and just the will of the people, and I am confident that they will be able to remove the last mine from Ukraine.

Scott Pelley: Does this war mean anything to you?

Serhii Nikolaiv (translation): Not to a single person here or elsewhere. What kind of mind? What kind of idiot or idiot does one have to be to wish something like that on their enemies? You can not. Even now, someone could drop a fork or spoon and it would make a loud noise. And in your soul you feel pain, bitterness and fear. It’s a real horror. (my sister-in-law) was torn apart by a mine in front of her children. Before their eyes.

Among all the war crimes committed by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, one of them is the bombing of the central hospital in Izium.

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): After this part of the hospital was damaged, many medical services simply became unavailable. Here we had both intensive care and three operating rooms.

When Yuriy Kuznetzov was 14 years old, his grandmother died in his arms. He told us that’s why he became a doctor. And we suspect that’s why he stayed during the bombings, the occupation and the battle of the mines.

Scott Pelley: When a city loses its hospital, it doesn’t just lose medical care: it loses hope.

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): The best praise I gave was when a woman told me in April 2022: “When we learned that the hospital was still open, we realized that our city had hope, that she could resist, survive and (have a) future.”

Ukraine’s future will require dedication and heroic patience. That day, Yulia Yaroshchuk slowly dismantled a Russian mine, while millions of others moved away from its edge.

Produced by Maria Gavrilovic. Associate producer, Alex Ortiz. Broadcast Associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by Sean Kelly.