A Ukrainian man thought he had cleared his garden after discovering a dozen landmines with his wife. He was wrong.
There was a 13th landmine in Ihor Bogoraz’s garden at his summer home on the outskirts of Izium, one of millions of landmines scattered throughout Ukraine.
“I stepped on it and it exploded instantly,” he said in Ukrainian. “And that’s it – no leg.”
Since our visit, he has received a prosthesis. His son serves in the Ukrainian army. Bogoraz, a 61-year-old retired glassmaker, is among more than 1,000 civilians injured by mines in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities. Massive efforts are underway to find and eliminate these deadly weapons, but it will take a generation or more to get rid of them.
Landmine victims in Ukraine
Serhii Nikolaiv was walking through the autumn leaves while uncovering the vines for spring when he triggered a mine. If it had been green he would have noticed it, he said, but the mine was brown and blended in with the leaves.
“I stepped on it and I knew right away,” Nikolaiv said in Ukrainian.
Tragedy struck Serhii Nikolaiv twice. Her sister-in-law stepped on a mine in front of her children and was killed.
“Even now, someone can drop a fork or a spoon and it makes a loud noise. And in your soul you feel pain, bitterness and fear. It’s a real horror,” did he declare.
Another victim, Lidia Borova, a 70-year-old widow, was picking mushrooms in the forest when she came across a mine.
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“I turned around near the tree and then there was an explosion,” she said in Ukrainian. “I looked at myself and I was bleeding, my arm was hurt, my leg was hurt. I was losing strength.”
His right foot and ankle were torn off.
“I didn’t realize how much blood I had lost,” she said in Ukrainian. “I don’t know how I managed to survive.”
Borova credits Ukrainian surgeon and hero Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov with saving her life.
Dr. Kuznetzov, who remained in Izium during the six months of Russian occupation, said that most of the victims he treated stepped on “petal” mines, or antipersonnel mines. The 5-inch-long mines float from the sky in thousands, falling like flower petals. Eleven pounds of pressure will set them off.
“The person who invented them was an evil genius because they only weigh (2 ounces) but what they can do when triggered is terrifying,” Kouznetzov said in Ukrainian.
Heal the victims
Dr. Kuznetzov saw landmine victims approximately every week. Efforts are underway to clear mines in Izium and beyond, but this will take years.
The doctor devoted half of his life to the Izium Central Hospital. Many of his colleagues were evacuated after the large-scale attack invasion started, but Dr. Kuznetzov, originally from Izium, remained.
“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 said in Ukrainian.
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About a week after the start of the war, Izioum’s central hospital was bombed, paralyzing the city’s medical services. The six-month Russian occupation began a month later, and many civilians and medical personnel fled. Dr. Kuznetsov stayed – and kept the hospital open.
“The best praise I gave was when a woman told me in April 2022 that ‘when we learned the hospital was still open, we realized our city had hope, that she could resist, survive and (have) a future'”. said Dr. Kuznetzov in Ukrainian.
Izioum was liberated in September 2022. The Russian occupation left more than 1,000 people dead and 80% of the city destroyed. Today, Izium, just 32 kilometers from the front line, is contaminated by mines and unexploded ordnance. Civilians are losing limbs due to antipersonnel mines still scattered throughout the city and surrounding villages.
One of Dr. Kuznetzov’s most difficult tasks is convincing local patients that they need a leg amputated after a mining accident.
“It’s very difficult to explain to them that the leg is useless, that it serves no purpose,” he said.
Remove mines
While Dr. Kuznetzov helps victims, mine clearance teams work to remove landmines and unexploded ordnance in Izium and beyond.
When Vasyl Solyanik discovered petal mines on his roof and in his garden, he called 101 and the emergency services sent bomb disposal experts Ivan Shepelev and Ihor Ovcharuk to help him. Throughout Ukraine, the two men found all types of munitions, Ovcharuk said: anti-infantry, anti-tank, mortars, artillery shells and rockets.
Shepelev said that when the Ukrainians liberated the occupied territory, the Russian army left booby traps and mines everywhere, including in civilian houses. Ovcharuk said the bodies of the dead Ukrainian soldiers were mined.
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Mine clearance work is dangerous. In 2022, a mining accident broke Ovcharuk’s kneecap. Despite the dangers, the work continues.
“We know that every explosive we remove means someone’s life is saved,” Shepelev said.
Pete Smith, who leads mine clearance efforts at the HALO Trust, a charity founded in 1988 to clear mines from war zones, said today that Ukraine is the most mined country in the world.
“I think the scope is unrecognizable in modern times,” Smith said.
Smith took 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley to a farm outside Izium strewn with Russian anti-tank mines. There, Pelley met HALO bomb disposal expert Yulia Yaroshchuk and watched her use a thin wand to methodically search for tripwires in a large field with tall grass. Kneeling next to an active land mine, Yaroshchuk used the wand to move grass blade by blade. The day before our visit to the farm, a HALO deminer was killed and two others injured in southern Ukraine.
Pelley asked Yaroshchuk why she continues to do such dangerous work.
“This is my contribution to victory,” she said.
Scott Pelley
Grub5
