Even after the war in Ukraine is over, with all territories are deoccupied, cities liberated, and borders restored, the land will bear the dangerous scars of fighting—mines. No country in the world has ever faced a situation like this. As of today, 40% of Ukrainian territory is mined.
This piece—a part of project “The Most Mined Country in the World”—is intended to shed light on the tragic and heroic human stories behind the issue of landmines.
“I don’t have access to the fields along the border—they’re mined,” says Oleksandr Shkurat, a 56-year-old farmer, as he walks between the ears of grain and heads of sunflowers. “All that is left are these few fields here, a bit further from the border.”
In Chernihiv Oblast, gray concrete triangles linked by metal cables stand among the golden wheat fields. These fortification lines stretch for kilometers, cutting through crops. Heavy, ripe ears of grain droop over the barbed wire spikes and red mine warning tape. The time has come to harvest the grain. Summer 2024 in Ukraine is not only the summer of another harvest, but also the third summer of the full-scale war. Parts of the wheat, sunflower, oats or rapeseed will remain in the fields of the Ukrainian north as long as Russians continue to shell areas along the border.
“A bit further” means around 20 kilometers away—the distance at which Oleksandr can harvest crops while still hearing the shelling. This spring, the construction of a new defense fortification line reduced the farmer’s fields by several more hectares. These fortifications, known as “dragon’s teeth,” rose faster than the oats. In Greek myths, “to sow the dragon teeth” means to start a feud. But the feud against Ukraine started long ago, Oleksandr and other farmers in Chernihiv have created their own mythology.
“Over these years, I still haven’t been able to accept that evil can go unpunished. Russia and this war are pure evil—the kind you read about in fairytales and legends. And, according to all fairytale rules, good should fight this evil. But so far, it’s the weapons that are winning”.
Oleksandr lost 80% of his fields because of the Russians.
The North. The corner forgotten even by God
The crops are harvested late in the north of Ukraine. But in July, even here, it’s time for the grain harvest. Oleksandr is in a hurry as it is a good day: no rain, no shelling—he should harvest his fields.
“The closer to the border, the more dangerous it is for farmers to work. In Bilopillia, Russians killed a 37-year-old combine harvester with a drone, and wounded his assistant. It’s monstrous. They often shell our fields on purpose, and farmers get blown up on mines. They even shelled us tonight. Sometimes a sprayer is crossing the field, the shell hits right there. The tractor driver doesn’t know where to hide. It’s one thing when equipment is on fire, but it’s another when people die,” Oleksandr says in a break between coordinating workers. As the combine finishes the last rows of a yellow oats field, Oleksandr drives up an old ZIL truck to be filled with grain.
The old vehicle is struggling to make its way down the sandy road to the field. Oleksandr’s land lies among pine forests between Semenivka and Khotiyivka. It takes almost three hours to drive here from Chernihiv, and the whole time the road goes by the forest next to the Russian border, from where enemy subversive reconnaissance groups can enter. Red “mine” signs are posted, and mannequins in Russian “cotton woolen jackets” hang from the pine trees, adding to the ominous atmosphere of the road.
“That’s our boys training to hang Putin,” Oleksandr jokes, and then adds more seriously: “We are so far away from civilization. These are places forgotten even by God. There is nothing beyond here—well, besides Russia.”
“The farmer has been unlucky twice. His Semenivka community shares the longest border with Russia in the region, stretching 135 kilometers. And almost all his fields go along the border. That’s why he did not harvest winter wheat in 2022. The first shells hit his fields at dawn on February 24.
“Everything was flying and exploding. Later, at eight o’clock, columns of the Russian tanks drove along the village roads,” he recalls.
In 2022, the occupiers didn’t stay in Semenivka; they passed the village on their way to Kyiv. Just over a month later, Russian troops retreated down those same local roads, leaving mines behind. The borderlands were hardly damaged then, but now the enemy shells everything they failed to capture.
“Over there, across the border, in Russia, they are harvesting, too. But our soldiers are not beasts, they do not fire at the combines,” says Oleksandr with apparent pain in his voice. He seems to be a man with an acute sense of justice. But it is hard to find justice in the borderlands, or security, either. Out of 1,800 hectares of his farmland, he only has access to 400 hectares. The rest is covered by mines.
Today, 5.6 million hectares of fields are mined in Ukraine, which is the size of Odesa and Khmelnytsky Oblasts put together. If these lands are not cleared, farmers will lose up to 2.5 billion dollars annually, according to the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine.
Oleksandr has heard these figures too, but he describes his losses in far simpler words:
“Farmers here are just surviving—both physically and financially.”
The threat that Russians will re-enter Chernihiv Oblast persists, which deprives local businesses of investment, support from funds or even from the state. Nobody wants to invest in land that Russian mortars can reach.
“For two years, we’ve been selling our grain below cost; this year, for the first time, the price increased. But the shelling intensified, too,” as if to confirm Oleksandr’s words, dull explosions are heard from the nearby forest.
The South. Just like in movies, but scarier
More than 700 kilometers separate Semenivka in Chernihiv Oblast and Novohryhorivka in Mykolaiv Oblast. Oleksandr Shkurat has never visited this southern village, butt he would recognize its pain at first sight—the same “mines” signs, the same ears of wheat blackened by shell explosions.
Novohryhorivka lies close to the road connecting Kherson and Mykolaiv. In 2022, russian troops marching towards the port city turned the village into a battlefield.
Prior to the full-scale war, 500 people lived there, and there was a school and a kindergarten. The locals were engaged in farming: they grew wheat, sunflower and vegetables. After the occupation, Novohryhorivka is still in ruins, with deep craters gaping in the asphalt and cows grazing among the remains of homes.
Farmers can no longer work the fields as they once did—some of those fields have burned down, others remain mined. When the village was liberated, 150 residents returned, but only three farmers remained.
Vitaliy Sydor piles pieces of Grad rockets, mines, and tank shells in a large heap in his yard near the kennel where his old black dog sleeps.
“I’ve bought a metal detector and go through my fields looking for mines myself. I don’t have the time to wait until the state does this,” says the 30-year-old man as he pulls a rusty mine shank from the pile. The fighting for Novohryhorivka stopped more than a year and a half ago, but the farmer continues to find mines. During this time, he managed to clear 200 hectares of fields.
“When the full-scale war began, I left the village with my family. I wandered around the country for nine months, constantly thinking about returning home. On my way back home, I bought two metal detectors—and they’ve been very useful.
The man paid 10,000 hryvnias for two simple metal detectors and considers it a profitable investment. For farmers in the south, the impact of demining on production is as significant as the cost of buying equipment.
Vitaliy walks through the field with a mine detector twice. If it starts beeping, he leaves a flag there. And then he either clears it himself or calls for rescuers, depending on how complex the shell is—he’s already become an expert in identifying them. He can usually tell what kind of shell is there right away. Throughout the war, the farmer had to become a demining expert by watching internet videos and asking soldiers for advice.
“It is hard to demine anti-tank mines. It is necessary to attach a cable to them, then go as far away as possible, lie down, hold your breath and yank. It’s like in a movie, where the character carefully cuts the explosive wire and worries, but here it is much scarier,” he says. The daily adventures of Vitalii, who looks like a young Benicio del Toro, would be enough for an action TV series. He uploads short videos with demining to his social media pages. But they get deleted. Instagram calls it hate speech when the farmer refers to Russia as the aggressor and Russians as occupiers.
“Russians destroyed houses on purpose, the houses caught fire one by one. Every single house in the village was ruined. If a house was only hit by debris, it was considered lucky. We determined that every house suffered seven or eight hits.
Vitaliy personally dismantled the rubble and pulled shell fragments from the walls of his home. In addition to clearing his fields, he helps locals clear their gardens. And every time, he finds a new piece of shrapnel to add to the pile by his doghouse.
Just like Oleksandr in the north, Vitaliy in the south receives no subsidies, grants, or support from either the state or international donors.
He finds the strength to continue farming among the mines and ruins by holding on to his roots.
“I was born and raised here. This is my homeland. This village may be devastated, but I have no other village, it is the best for me. There is no other way but to demine and rebuild it,” says Vitalii Sydor. Today, he plans to clean up his barley field.
Ukrainian farmers, who do hard and dirty work every day, somehow manage to stay romantic. Oleksandr from Chernihiv Oblast called his farm “Mriya (Dream) Agro Mash.” “Mash” is short for Masheve, the village where he was born. “Agro” represents the work of his life—agriculture. Now, the farmer only has one dream: to walk through his fields near the border and see nothing but wheat sprouts—no more mine signs.
Translation — Olha Dubnevych
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[The translation of this publication was compiled with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework “European Renaissance of Ukraine” project. Its content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation]
