EUROPE

August 3, 2023 9:06 AM UTC

On Ukraine's landmine-strewn front, even the corpses can kill

When they found the bodies of Russian troops at an abandoned position, something about the corpses looked wrong.

"There were three or four of their dead. Two guys were lying on each other, which made us suspicious, because if there had been an explosion they would have been thrown in different directions, but here, one is lying on the other," said Volodymyr, a 47-year-old sapper with possibly the most dangerous job in Ukraine: clearing landmines at the front.

"We did well by not touching them, because when we reached there with a 'kitten', we saw that under them was a PM mine," he said.

The kitten is a folding steel hook that sappers use to dislodge booby traps, nicknamed for its retractable tongs that spring out like cat's claws. The PM is a Soviet-era anti-personnel mine.

"It exploded and blew up both of them, but we stayed safe, thank God."

Occupying Russian troops have sown landmines and booby traps across hundreds of miles of Ukraine's front, a tactic that Kyiv's commanders describe as the primary reason why their long-awaited summer counteroffensive has slowed to a crawl.

SAPPERS GO FIRST

For mine-clearers like Volodymyr, every day brings deadly risk, trying to make the ground safe, first for their fellow soldiers to advance, and eventually for civilians to go home.

"We lose one sapper every day, either wounded or dead. It's a dangerous job. And whether a whole brigade is advancing or around 12 guys go out on their mission, it's always the sappers that go first. It's very dangerous," he said.

The Russians "mine everything. Open doors, boxes and crates, even toys," he said. Even their own dead: "They know that our med-evac groups lift the wounded and the dead, under which they then find these explosives. And this is very dangerous for us."

Landmines inflicted a colossal toll in the first month of the counteroffensive launched in June, said Oleksandr, an anaesthesiologist with the 128 Brigade who treats battlefield wounds at a front-line field hospital.

Since the mines forced commanders to slow the advance, the number of wounded arriving at his hospital has tapered off markedly. But the sappers are still getting killed.

"In this direction, the area is heavily mined and that's why it is being overcome so slowly," he said.

"We had cases when five or six wounded people were brought in, and most of them turned out to be sappers. So, there is such a densely mined area, that even one step away from the already cleared route and this may end rather fatally."

Ukraine's factories have tooled up to make equipment to help keep the sappers safer. In addition to the "kitten" hooks, Volodymyr's unit has been sent "spider boots", which lift each foot off the ground on four metal legs, so any blast they set off will not be triggered directly under a sapper's body.

They are made by Ihor Iefymenko at a factory in Kharkiv, based on a modified Canadian prototype. He told Reuters he pitched the idea to the emergency services after a relative lost a toe to a butterfly mine.

Oleksandr, the medic treating sappers at the front, knows the danger won't end soon.

"There are definitely not enough sappers, and given the intensity of the mining, even after the war the sappers will be one of the main professions," he said.

"We would have liked just to wake up one day as if it were a nightmare, a bad dream and we just shrugged it off, washed with cold water and all of it remained somewhere behind. But this is the reality."

Additional reporting by Vitalii Hnidyi in Kharkiv; Writ

13 min ago

Heavy combat continues with little movement on Ukrainian front lines

From CNN's Tim Lister, Julia Kesaieva and Olga Voitovych

Ukrainian service members climb a BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle, in Zaporizhzhia region, on July 31. Sergiy Chalyi/Reuters

There has been no significant gains from either sides on the front lines in Ukraine, with fighting still concentrated in the south and east, according to videos and statements from official sources.

In the Zaporizhzhia region: Russian-appointed officials in the occupied south say Ukrainian attempts to break through Russian military lines have been defeated. Pro-Russian Telegram channels have posted images and video of destroyed Ukrainian armor, though it's unclear when and exactly where the equipment was struck.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military said one Russian position in the Zaporizhzhia sector had been eliminated, along with an ammunition depot.

Near Bakhmut in the east: Around the Bakhmut area, the Ukrainians have not reported any further progress but have posted video of the targeting of Russian positions.

The Ukrainians have also posted video of additional Zuzana self-propelled artillery systems provided by Slovakia.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian Ground Forces, said on Telegram that a "gradual advance continues" in the Bakhmut area.

At the same time, Russian military bloggers have published video of Ukrainian infantry vehicles being struck. One of the bloggers said that "the Russian army continues to repel the attacks of the AFU northwest of the city [of Bakhmut]. The fiercest fighting is now taking place near Klishchiivka," a village south of Bakhmut that the Ukrainians have been trying to capture for several weeks.

In the northeast: In the direction of Kupyansk, the Russian Defense Ministry said that well-hidden tank forces are providing support to infantry, "ensuring the advance of Russian troops," although here too there is no indication that either side is taking and holding meaningful territory.

8hr 38 min ago

Kyiv officials temper expectations for counteroffensive as areas remain heavily mined

From CNN's Tim Lister, Julia Kesaieva and Olga Voitovych


Ukrainian officials continue to cool expectations for the progress of the counteroffensive as fighting is still concentrated in two parts of the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said on Ukrainian television Wednesday that there were no deadlines for Ukraine's counteroffensive.
"No one can set deadlines for us but ourselves. Secondly, there is no schedule," he said, also claiming he has never used the word "counteroffensive."
"There are military operations. They are complex, difficult, and depend on many factors," he said. Danilov echoed what other Ukrainian officials have said recently.

"The main task for us is to save the lives of our people at the front. We have to understand that the enemy has prepared for these events very well, with a huge number of territories mined," he said.

He described the density of Russian mining as "insane," with three to five mines per square meter.
"Imagine how difficult the work is to remove them to allow our military to move afterwards. And if earlier there were hopes that this could be done with the help of equipment provided by our partners, today our units are doing a very difficult job on foot in many parts of the front line at night," he said. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Ukrainians switched to "slower and more careful operations while disrupting Russian rear areas with long-range precision strikes," after the first stage of the offensive failed to achieve a breakthrough.

"Ukrainian forces are fighting now to break through the first line of long-prepared Russian defenses. Several lines lie behind it, stretching for many miles," the ISW said in a commentary for Time magazine.

When asked about specific forms of assistance, majorities across parties say the US should be providing Ukraine assistance in intelligence gathering (70% of Democrats, 63% of independents and 56% of Republicans say so). And while nearly two-thirds of Democrats back military training (64%), support among independents and Republicans drops to about half (48% among each group). There’s an even larger partisan gap over providing weapons to Ukraine, with 61% of Democrats behind that compared with 39% of independents and just 30% of Republicans. Less than 20% across parties back providing US military forces to participate in combat operations (19% among Democrats, 18% among independents and 16% among Republicans).

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KYIV, July 7 (Reuters) - With war dragging on, some of Ukraine's millions of refugees are beginning to think about settling for good in the countries they find themselves in across Europe, posing a challenge to rebuilding the economy when the guns finally fall silent.

Natalka Korzh, 52, a TV director and mother-of-two, left behind a newly-built dream house when she escaped the rockets falling on Kyiv in the early days of the war. She is only just finding her feet in Portugal, and doesn't plan on packing up her life again even when fighting stops in Ukraine.