Name: Up to ten million Russian landmines throughout Ukraine since full-scale invasion | DW News
Uploaded: 2025-12-01T16:50:44.000Z
Duration: 8 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The United nations has released its annual report on the impact of landmines across the globe.

It shows a stark increase in the number of casualties.

Fear of Russian invasion has spurred five of its neighbors to leave the global treaty banning mines.

That's after Moscow used the weapons extensively in Ukraine with devastating results.

The daily grind of clearing landmines in Ukraine often comes at a cost.

I moved the toes of my other leg, which seemed to be fine.

Just one of thousands of victims, men, women and children affected by the landmines.

Since the full scale invasion in 2022, it's estimated that Russian forces have laid up to 10 million mines and other explosives throughout Ukraine.

The regions marked in red are the most affected.

They include the Donetsk and Kherson regions in eastern Ukraine, which are largely under Russian control.

Up to 25% of Ukraine's territory is contaminated.

According to the UN, over 5 million civilians are living in or near contaminated zones and are at constant risk.

In these mined areas, agriculture has all but ground to a halt.

For some farmers, the the risk of losing an entire harvest is too great.

So they attempt to clear their own land with metal detectors or rakes.

The people from the Ministry of Emergency Situations were working on more important things, like areas close to energy sources.

We found that they never came to our house.

So we slowly cleaned, cleared our land ourselves.

Demining in an active war zone is a constant battle.

The ongoing conflict and constant shelling only increases the danger.

And the efforts are often directly hampered.

In October, Russian missiles struck a demining mission, killing two soldiers.

But Ukrainian land is slowly being reclaimed.

The largest areas that have been cleared include parts of Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Kherson.

Fields once too dangerous to touch, are ready to yield crops once more.

But for the millions still living in designated danger zones, the risk of injury or worse remains a daily reality.

Now we are joined by Eva Maria Fisher with HANDICAP International in Geneva.

Now, our report we've just seen showed roughly 25% of land contaminated.5 million civilian at risk there.

It's extreme how strongly Ukraine is contaminated.

And we know that it will take decades until this land can be cleared again after war will have finally ended.

And of course, even now the civilians, as the report has shown, are extremely in danger through these mines every day.

I saw you when the report was running, you were shaking your head when you saw the civilian people, these farmers trying to clear their land.

What goes through your head when you see pictures like that?

Because it's often the case that the people, they don't see any other solution than doing it themselves.

And on the other hand, we as handicapped international, we know how it is, how dangerous it is to clear landmines and how important it is that you do it professionally.

And of course, if the people don't have anyone else who's helping them, they have to do it like that.

Now the landmine monitor logs more than 6,200 casualties last year.

Why are civilians still 90% of the victims despite this ban that has been in place for so long?

Because this is the very nature of the weapon.

And this was exactly why this weapon has been banned by now 166 countries of the world, because 90% of the victims are civilians.

And because these weapons, they kill and maim, especially civilians.

And decades after war, there are no more soldiers to be killed.

These are really weapons who, yeah, just come over for civilians.

Now five states such as Poland, have quit the treaty this year to steel themselves against a possible Russian invasion.

I can understand the increased security needs of these countries, but

I cannot understand and I think here in Geneva, where I'm now, there are many other people who really don't understand why you have to come back to weapons of the last millennium.

Weapons that have been banned in the 90s already because their humanitarian consequences are going far beyond their military use.

And I know many, many defense who say the same.

There are other, there are modern possibilities, maybe to protect your border, but

not come back to these weapons that do not make anybody safer.

Now, regrettably, children make up nearly half of the recorded casualties.

What can be done to especially protect children from this danger?

especially during the conflict or right after conflict risk education is extremely important.

That means organizations like ours, they are coming to the countries, they are talking directly to children, they are educating teachers to bring across the message.

If you see something like that, don't touch it.

Giving just certain rules of behavior to avoid accidents if it can be.

Now, with 58 states still mine contaminated, is a mine free world by 2025, which is nearly over.

10 years ago when this goal was set, I was really, really full of hope that at least for many countries, it's possible and we saw many countries who being cleared of mines, heavily mined countries like Mozambique who are now mind free.

But a world free of minds now really in the last years has come very, very in a far distance because we see in the recent conflicts how again, these mines are used in so many countries.

If Aunt Maria Fisher there from Handicap International in Geneva, thank you very much for sharing your expertise with us.