Landmines – Russia’s Big Trap for Kherson?: Since Russia announced the withdrawal of troops from Kherson city this week, Ukrainian officials have remained skeptical and cautious about what the Kremlin could be planning. While the retreat appears to be slowly taking place, Ukrainian officials now believe that Russian forces could have purposely left behind vast numbers of landmines to hurt Ukrainian troops advancing into the city as they left.
Senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mykhailo Podolyak, accused Russia of turning Kherson into a “city of death” after ordering troops to leave. Podolyak claimed on Twitter that Russian forces were going to great lengths to make the city as dangerous as possible for Ukrainian soldiers to return.
“RF (Russian Federation) wants to turn Kherson into a ‘city of death.’ The Russian military mines everything they can: apartments, sewers. Artillery on the left bank plans to turn the city into ruins,” Podolyak said.
“This is what the ‘Russian world’ looks like: came, robbed, celebrated, killed ‘witnesses’, left ruins and left,” he continued.
Kherson as Landmine Hell
As Ukrainian special forces advance into the city, scoping out the damage and determining what – if any – Russian positions remain, the landmines could pose a serious problem. While many of the mines can be removed from the roads using specialist anti-mine equipment and vehicles, many of those left in the sewers and residential buildings could take much longer to identify and remove.
It means that even if Ukrainian forces do take control of Kherson city, the landmines could hinder progress or slow soldiers down as they attempt to establish new lines of defense. This could provide Russia with crucial time to prepare new offensives in the region and to send in some of the newest reservists currently on their way to Ukraine.
Photographs taken by Ukrainian soldiers reveal the extent to which the Russians have gone to boobytrap some parts of Kherson. One photograph shared on Thursday showed dozens of landmines that had reportedly been dug out of one single section of a road in Kherson.
As Russian forces withdraw from Ukraine’s Kherson region, Ukrainian sappers have begun unearthing landmines laid by Russian troops. This is reportedly the number of mines found in one section of a road in Kherson.#Ukraine #Russia pic.twitter.com/cNK2yMjcio
— Andrew Jose (@realAndrewJose) November 10, 2022
In a Telegram post, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko also revealed how at least five people were killed in the Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions on Wednesday as a result of shelling and landmines.
Unconfirmed reports on Thursday from local media outlets and Ukrainian Telegram channels indicated that Ukrainian forces have begun advancing on the city. However, it remains unclear just how many troops have been sent in.
Images: Creative Commons.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
