Mines Left by Russia Litter Ukrainian Fields

BERYSLAV, Ukraine — Oleksandr Hordienko stepped gingerly into a wheat field that had recently served as a Russian tank position, following closely behind an assistant with a metal detector. He stopped when he came to a row of metal disks glinting in the sun. Tank mines, hundreds of them, were laid out in a checkerboard pattern across his field and presenting a conundrum before the spring planting season.

Farmers who choose to work their land risk death or dismemberment by the mines, shells and other ordnance that litter the fields. Those who do not risk an economic crisis: The fighting has already cost the southern Kherson region three harvests, and there is no sign that farming will resume its role as an engine of Ukraine’s economy anytime soon.

Producing watermelons, barley, sunflower oil and corn, Ukraine’s farms have sustained generations, delivered huge amounts of food to the world and could now provide a needed lifeline to the country. The Russian troops who once occupied much of southern Ukraine are gone, but they left an array of explosives behind.

“They fully mined I don’t know how many dozens of kilometers,” said Mr. Hordienko, who farms wheat and rapeseed on 600 hectares. “How we’re going to remove them all, no one yet knows.”

Ukraine’s military pushed Russian forces from a large section of the Kherson region in the fall, but recovery after eight months of occupation has been slow. Russian troops still control territory in the region east of the Dnipro River, meaning that a large chunk of newly liberated lands remains in range of Russian artillery.

In areas at a safer distance, like Mr. Hordienko’s farmland, Ukrainian mine clearers known as sappers must still survey and remove thousands of mines and unexploded ordnance before anyone can resume a normal life.

The HALO Trust, a global mine-clearing organization, estimates that explosives may have contaminated a territory the size of Britain.

“The Russians mined everything, from towns and electrical lines to children’s toys, doghouses and beehives,” said Oleksandr Dvoretskyi, the head of demining in the region. “The goal was to prevent us from bringing back a stable life for people.”

Since October, his sappers have destroyed over 16,000 mines and ordnance. Clearing the rolling farm fields poses a particular challenge. Mr. Dvoretskyi estimates that some 300,000 hectares will have to be demined.

A sea corridor, negotiated by the United Nations last year to allow Ukrainian grain to bypass a Russian blockade for shipment abroad, has partly alleviated the global food crisis set off by the war. The deal, which was to expire on March 18, has been extended, but farmers have to be able to plant and harvest grain again for the shipments to continue.

Experts say it is too early to estimate how long it might take to clear all of the mines. In the meantime, farmers have carefully begun to survey their lands. Mr. Hordienko has found 1,500 mines.

The war did not seem very far away during a recent tour of his fields, outside Beryslav, about 65 kilometers upriver from the city of Kherson. The boom of artillery was audible in the distance. A burned Russian tank sat in a thicket. Mr. Hordienko, who is the chairman of the Farmer’s Association of Kherson Region, said he did not expect to be able to begin planting until the fall, and even then, it will be on land that is free of explosives.

Since the start of the war, nearly 200 civilians have been killed by mines, according to HALO, though this is likely an undercount. Hundreds have been wounded.

On the side of the road, Mr. Hordienko pointed to pieces of twisted metal that were once a car. Around the New Year, a husband and wife and their two children were killed when they hit a tank mine.

Many Ukrainian farmers believe that Russian forces targeted their fields to starve Ukrainians and ruin an important economic driver.

At a grain storage facility in the Kherson region owned by Nibulon, one of the country’s largest agricultural exporters, not a building was left undamaged. On a recent day, piles of putrid-smelling wheat were rotting in damaged warehouses.

“Wherever they saw a warehouse, they fired, and it did not matter whether there were civilians there or military,” said Bohdan Muzyka, a Nibulon deputy director. “There’s a sense that the Russians simply wanted to destroy everything.”