While foraging for mushrooms earlier this summer, a 53-year-old woman from the Sumy region of Ukraine accidentally picked up an explosive object, one of the many littered across the otherwise lush forest landscape that cover much of the region.
Injured but conscious, the woman, whose identity has not been revealed by the authorities, called her son, who alerted the local police immediately. “She was found bleeding and provided with first aid and evacuated from the area, which remains unsafe,” the police department said, adding, “The trip to the forest almost ended in tragedy.”
Soon after, another statement was issued, one that has been repeated frequently over the last three years: “The police once again emphasise: border and forest areas may be mined! Under no circumstances should you enter such areas without urgent need.”
Residents of Sumy and the surrounding eastern regions have become all too familiar with these warnings. “It is a fate one accepts living next door to Russia,” said 30-year-old Anna, a resident of Kyiv, who only wished to share her first name.
Largest contamination
As the country comes under massive shelling, missile and drone attacks, the Ukrainian landscape has got contaminated with active remnants of explosive devices, bombs, and even drones.
The Russians, while retreating from some of the areas they captured in the initial phase of the invasion, planted hundreds, possibly thousands, of anti-personnel mines, stepping on which could instantly dismember the victim.
“There are currently over a million mines in the Ukrainian soil,” estimated Paul Heslop, Senior UN Mine Action Adviser in Ukraine.
But mines aren’t the only explosives concerning organisations which are working on demining. “There is also an awful lot of unexploded shells, rockets, grenades, mortars from the fighting, particularly in the buffer zone where artillery’s got roughly a 20-mile range,” he said, adding urban environment that saw the Russian invasion were no better.
“We are looking at some of the worst contamination we’ve seen since the Second World War,” he said.
According to data shared by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SESU), there have been 910 incidents involving mines and explosive remnants of war, resulting in 992 people injured and 359 killed since the start of the war in February 2022. In 2025 alone, SESU stated that there have been 162 incidents, involving 187 injuries and 33 deaths.
The Ukrainian National Mine Action Authority, estimated that as of mid-July this year, almost 139,000 sq. km — about 23% of the country’s landmass — is directly affected by Russian explosives and mines. Of this, about 687,000 hectares are forest areas.
Over six million people are living in and around the contaminated areas.
Several Ukrainians shared accounts of coming across mines and unexploded ordinances while foraging for mushroom in the forests. “It was especially very common in the earlier days after the invasion,” Ms. Anna said.
Earlier this year, Ms. Anna and her friends came across pieces of explosives in forests around Kyiv.
“We loved going on hikes as a weekend activity, but coming across pieces of bombs and explosives made it a very stressful experience. Especially if you have kids because they will pick up anything,” she said.
The popularity of this outdoor activity, combined with the frequent risk of finding mines, prompted the Ukrainian government to issue instructions about safely foraging.
Shifting frontlines
What compounds the problem is advanced weapons technology and drone warfare employed in this war. Mr. Helsop explained that as the delivery system of explosives changes, “every drone could be a potential unexploded device”.
In recent months, record-breaking aerial attacks, involving Iran-made Shahed drones, have caused casualties and forced residents to spend nights in shelters. The largest of these was recorded on July 9 with 728 drones and 13 missiles targeting multiple cities across the country.
The changing weapons technology is also getting harder for demining agencies to combat them. “The clearance of advanced explosive objects, especially those of industrial or high-tech origin, poses many serious challenges,” said Andrii Danyk, the head of SESU. “[Russia] uses new types of drones, self-detonating systems, and cluster munitions, which are more difficult to detect using standard methods,” he said, adding that many devices are created or modified by hand, which makes it harder to identify and mitigate their threats.
But even as the risks of mines and exploded ordinances have risen in recent years, countries, including Ukraine, have taken steps to suspend or temporarily withdraw from the international anti-mines treaty.
Over the last two months, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and, most recently, Ukraine, have announced their withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, also known as the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, which regulates and restricts the use of most types of landmines.
In the case of Ukraine, the government’s humanitarian demining operations continue even as they consider using mines to deter Russian advances.
Mr. Danyk of SESU explained that the decision to “temporarily suspend” the Ottawa Convention was made in view of the unprecedented challenges posed by the ongoing invasion, pointing out that Russia has never been a party to the treaty and has been systematically using prohibited types of mines since 2014.
However, Mr. Danyk emphasised that the withdrawal would not affect the ongoing demining efforts, and “humanitarian demining remains one of the priorities of state policy”.
Mr. Heslop, the UN Mine Action Adviser, agreed: “Whether you’re clearing one bomb or a thousand bombs, you clear them one at a time,” he said. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. If the elephant gets bigger, then we just have to take more bites,” he added.
(Ruchi Kumar is an independent journalist)
