It was a grisly scene of bloodied limbs and crumpled vehicles as a series of Russian mines detonated in a field in southern Ukraine.
A Ukrainian soldier stepped on a mine and fell on the grass in the buffer zone between the two armies. Nearby, other Ukrainian soldiers lay with their legs bandaged and awaiting a medical evacuation, according to videos posted online and the accounts of several soldiers involved.
An armored vehicle soon arrived to rescue them. A medic jumped out to treat the wounded and knelt on what he thought was safe ground – only to have his knee set off another mine.
Five weeks into a counteroffensive that even Ukrainian officials say is faltering, interviews with commanders and soldiers fighting on the front lines suggest the slow progress is due to a major problem: landmines.
The fields that Ukrainian forces have to cross are littered with dozens of different types of mines – plastic and metal, in the shape of chewing tobacco tins or soda cans and with colorful names like “The Witch” and “The Leaf”.
The Ukrainian army is also hampered by a lack of air support and the dense network of defensive structures built by the Russians. But it’s the wide variety of mines, tripwires, booby-traps and improvised explosive devices that keeps Ukrainian forces bogged down just a few kilometers from where they started.
“I couldn’t imagine anything like that,” said a Ukrainian soldier named Serhiy, who was part of a unit rescuing soldiers wounded by the blasts. “I thought the mines would be in rows. But entire fields are filled with it everywhere.”
Mines have long been an integral part of Russian warfare, being used extensively in Afghanistan and Chechnya, as well as in earlier phases of the fighting in Ukraine that date back to 2014, they say.
“To clear mines you should have a lot of motivation and a cool head,” said Maj. Maksym Prysyazhnyuk, a Ukrainian demining expert who slips into the fields at night before the infantry advance. “It’s such a delicate job as that of a surgeon, but at the same time, explosions explode all around you” from the artillery in battle.
Mine clearance specialists venture out with metal detectors and long, slender probes attached to poles to carefully poke around in the ground, trying to find buried mines without triggering them. “These are our tools – and an icon in our pocket,” Major Prysyazhnyuk said, referring to orthodox religious imagery. He was at a medical stabilization point where wounded soldiers were appearing in a steady stream from mines.
In order to hinder mine clearance teams, the minefields are regularly equipped with booby traps and so-called anti-handling devices, which cause the mines to detonate when lifted. A common tactic is what Major Prysyazhnyuk called a “trick for idiots” – burying anti-personnel mines in front of a tripwire to target a soldier who might try to disable the tripwire.
Some of the more sophisticated explosives include the so-called Jump Mines, which jump up when stepped on and spray shrapnel, hitting other soldiers nearby. Russia also uses mines that are triggered by thin, yellow tripwires that stretch about a dozen meters. When disrupted, each of these mines can trigger an explosion and shrapnel.
The demining teams work by clearing a path about two feet wide that allows the infantry to advance. The deminers then work their way back up the path to widen it another foot or more to allow two soldiers to walk shoulder to shoulder while also carrying a stretcher for soldiers wounded in combat. Last month, a stretcher carrier with a wounded colleague set off a mine because the path couldn’t be widened fast enough.
Even after the paths have been cleared, there is danger. Russian forces often fire rockets that scatter small, hard-to-see green plastic leaf mines, also known as butterfly mines, over the cleared area, Major Prysyazhnyuk said.
Volodymyr, who serves as a military medic at the Stabilization Point, performs amputations on soldiers who have had feet or lower legs severed by mine blasts.
He said mines had overtaken artillery as the leading cause of injuries. Because some mines are plastic mines, the shrapnel they fire at soldiers can be invisible to doctors at first-aid stations near the front lines to avoid detection by demining teams, where medical teams use metal detectors to find and remove fragments, he said.
Like other soldiers interviewed, he spoke on the condition that he be identified by his first name only, for security reasons.
The soldiers are treated and sent to distant hospitals. Last week, Volodymyr said he amputated both hands of a demining expert who was injured trying to defuse a booby-trapped mine.
The past month has been a harrowing and difficult period of the war for the Ukrainian army, which is under pressure to move forward quickly and show Western allies that Ukraine’s arming policy can turn the tide.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyi spoke again in his nightly address on Friday defended the pace about the counteroffensive, saying that Russia threw “everything possible” at Kiev’s troops and that “every thousand meters of advance” deserves gratitude.
In the south, Ukrainian troops are attacking in at least three places, but have not broken through the main Russian defenses. Mines aren’t the only difficulty they face. As they advance, Ukrainian soldiers fall out of range of some of their air defense systems and become vulnerable to Russian gunships.
This week the Ukrainian army, at its furthest advance, south of the village of Velyka Novosilka, had pushed a bulge some five miles deep into Russian lines. At the spot where the soldiers stranded in a minefield, south of the city of Orikhiv, Ukraine advanced about a mile. To reach the Sea of Azov and cut supply lines to Russian-held Crimea, a goal of the counteroffensive, Ukraine must advance about 60 miles.
According to Ukrainian soldiers, one bright spot in the fight through the minefields is the protection provided by Western armored vehicles.
Where deployed, these vehicles have not enabled the Ukrainian military to cross minefields, but they have saved lives with their superior armor protecting against the blasts.
US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles with layered aluminum and steel armor roll over anti-personnel mines with impunity. They are immobilized by Russian anti-tank mines, heavy circular mines loaded with about 15 pounds of TNT, often without causing serious injury to the soldiers inside.
Denys, a military surgeon at another stabilization point near the front lines, said that troops injured by mine blasts while driving at Bradleys fared much better than those in Soviet-made armored vehicles, and that the main consequence was a concussion, not the loss of a limb.
“The Americans built this machine to save the lives of the crew,” said Serhiy, the rescue team’s private, who is now operating in his third Bradley after two earlier vehicles encountered anti-tank mines. The second case occurred when he and others were sent to evacuate wounded infantry stranded in a minefield.
The series of explosions was filmed by a Ukrainian drone and the footage was posted online by a Ukrainian journalist. The incident was also described to the New York Times by Serhiy and other witnesses.
Entering the minefield, the Bradley crew could hear, over the rumble of the engine, the popping of the less powerful anti-personnel mines, which exploded harmlessly as the vehicle’s tracks passed over them. To avoid anti-tank mines, they tried to follow the tracks left by other vehicles that had driven into the field, but it was difficult.
Reaching the wounded soldiers, a gunner, Serhiy, and a sergeant, also Serhiy, initially focused on firing back at Russian machine gun positions in a distant tree line, which were firing at the soldiers stuck in the minefield.
The medic meanwhile jumped into an artillery crater, apparently believing that the crater was free of anti-personnel mines. He knelt and lit one, ripping off part of his leg.
The drone footage shows the paramedic applying a tourniquet to his mutilated leg and then crawling back to the Bradley, where another paramedic pulls him on board, leaving a streak of blood on the ramp.
At the Bradley, other paramedics applied a second tourniquet, Sergeant Serhiy said. During the entire ordeal, which lasted more than three hours, he had to leave the vehicle at times to transport the injured.
“It was scary going out when you saw someone being blown up on a mine,” he said.
As they left the field, the Bradley hit an anti-tank mine and skidded to a stop. The blast damaged the rear ramp, so the crew opened a hatch on the roof, lifted the wounded through, and then lowered them to the ground. They then helped them hobble onto another Bradley, which took them to safety.
Sergeant Serhiy returned to the scene a few days later in an armored tow truck to pick up the Bradley. Pulling out, the Bradley rolled over another anti-tank mine, causing further damage.
The vehicle is currently in Poland for repairs, Sergeant Serhiy said. He received another Bradley to continue the attempted advance across the minefields.
Maria Varenikova Contribution to reporting from Orichiv, Ukraine.
