Massive Ukrainian effort underway to clear millions of landmines spread across country
No matter how Russia's war in Ukraine ends, Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov will be battling Vladimir Putin's madness for years. Kuznetzov is a Ukrainian surgeon and a national hero who stayed beside his patients as they were attacked. Now, heroism is a virtue that must endure. His city was liberated, but Dr. Kuznetzov sees victims every week or so -- civilians who step on one of the millions of Russian landmines across about a third of Ukraine. There's a massive effort to clear the mines but that will take a generation or more. Until then, there will be Dr. Kuznetzov with healing hands and eyes that have seen too much.
Half his life he's devoted to Central Hospital and here in its basement, with Putin's bombs overhead, all he'd become in 52 years was laid down in service to his home.
Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): We didn't imagine, until the end, that Russia would attack our country. When you're sitting in a basement at night and a plane is flying over you, it was impossible to predict whether you would wake up to see another day.
In 2022, the basement became Dr. Kuznetzov's operating room. That's him dressed in white. The wounded were endless—a close friend's wife he could not save and this man, who was shot, and lived.
Scott Pelley: Did you save more patients than you lost?
Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): We saved significantly more people, definitely.
Scott Pelley: Many of your colleagues evacuated and you did not. I wonder why you stayed.
Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): When you have patients and you're the only doctor or the only person who can treat them, I didn't understand how you could leave.
He could not leave Izium. His city of 40,000 was occupied for six months. The Russians laid landmines here as they ran from Ukraine's counterattack. Putin's unprovoked war on an innocent people destroyed 80% of Izium and killed 1,000, leaving apartment buildings cleaved in two and this school, built in 1882, a hollow corpse.
The people of Izium clothe themselves in liberation and yet, they are not entirely free.
Demining teams are still fighting Russia here. Izium, 20 miles from the front, is one of the worst areas for mines and unexploded ordnance. Throughout Ukraine, more than 1,000 civilians have been wounded by mines. Lidia Borova, a 70-year-old widow, was picking mushrooms in a forest.
Lidia Borova (translation): I turned by the tree and then there was an explosion. I looked [down] at myself and I was bleeding, my arm was injured, my leg was injured. I was losing strength.
Her right foot and ankle were ripped away.
Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): First of all, the most difficult thing, is to persuade a patient that their leg needs to be amputated. It's very difficult to explain to them that the leg is no good, no good to use
He told us a prosthetic is ultimately easier to live with.
Lidia Borova (translation): Dr. Kuznetzov saved me. I didn't realize how much blood I lost. I don't know how I managed to survive.
Ihor Bogoraz was with his wife in their garden. They found 12 mines. But there were 13.
Ihor Bogoraz (translation): I decided to mow the weeds. And one [mine] was under my foot. I stepped on it and it exploded instantly. And that's it – no leg.
Serhii Nikolaiv was walking in leaves from the autumn while uncovering grapevines for the spring.
Serhii Nikolaiv (translation): If it had been green, I would have noticed it. But it was brown – I didn't see it. It blended in with the leaves. I stepped on it. And I knew right away.
Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): The majority are those who stepped on "Petal" [mines] or anti-personnel mines - the person who invented them was an evil genius because they only weigh [two ounces] but what they can do when triggered is terrifying.
Petal mines, 5 inches long, flutter from aircraft by the thousands, like flower petals. Eleven pounds of pressure will set them off.
Vasyl Solyanik found them on his roof and in his garden.
Vasyl Solyanik (translation): There's 18 here, but in all, there were over 50.
He showed us his video. That's a petal mine right there. They are so common that we were told the story of a 70-year-old woman who gathered them in a basket and took them to a police station.
Vasyl Solyanik (translation): There's some left in the bushes over here, so don't walk around there.
He dialed 101 and emergency services sent deminers Ivan Shepelev and Ihor Ovcharuk.
Ihor Ovcharuk (translation): We encounter every type of munition – anti-infantry and anti-tank mines, mortars, artillery shells, [rockets]. It's all here.
At Solyanik's home, a sweep revealed an unexploded cluster bomb. Those are tricky. So they blew it in place.
Ivan Shepelev told us, as the Russians fled, they also left boobytraps.
Ivan Shepelev (translation): We have seen cases, unfortunately, where explosives were found in civilian homes.
Ihor Ovcharuk (translation): My [team] also had to work on removing our dead Ukrainian soldiers whose bodies had been mined.
In 2022, Ihor Ovcharuk's kneecap was shattered when a fellow deminer stepped on a mine and lost his foot.
Ivan Shepelev (translation): We know every explosive we remove means that someone's life is saved.
A few weeks after our visit, a Russian missile wrecked the fire station where they're based. Some were injured but not Shepelev or Ovcharuk.
Scott Pelley: What is the scope of the mine threat in Ukraine?
Pete Smith: I think the scope is unrecognizable in modern times.
Pete Smith heads demining here for the HALO Trust, a charity founded in 1988 to demine warzones. Smith was 33 years in the British army and awarded by Queen Elizabeth for disarming an IRA timebomb in a train station. Today, he says, Ukraine is the most heavily mined country.
Pete Smith: In some areas, the minefields are three or four mines deep, in areas, maybe a dozen mines deep. But that's just the first line of defense. Then, several kilometers behind that, there are other layers of-- of minefields, as well.
Smith took us to a farm sown with Russian anti-tank mines. You have to step carefully. Right there, in the center, is a mine packed with 17 pounds of high explosive. With three weeks of training behind her, Yulia Yaroshchuk was probing for any tripwire that would detonate a mine near her. She threaded the grass… feeling for the slightest resistance. Only the day before, a HALO deminer was killed and two were wounded in another part of Ukraine.
Scott Pelley: Doing this by hand with that wand, it seems to me that you have an awfully big field to cover.
Yulia Yaroshchuk (translation): Well, of course. It will be a very long process. As far as I know, it will take many, many years. Each day [of war] means years of de-mining.
Scott Pelley: Why do you do this work?
Yulia Yaroshchuk (translation): I didn't have to do it. I wanted to do it. this is my contribution to victory.
Scott Pelley: Will Ukraine ever be without mines?
Pete Smith: I think what I have seen in my time in Ukraine is the innovation, the patriotism, and just the sheer will of the people, that I'm confident that they will be able to remove the last mine from Ukraine.
Scott Pelley: Does this war make any sense to you?
Serhii Nikolaiv (translation): Not to a single person here, or anywhere. What kind of mind? What kind of moron or idiot do you have to be to even wish something like this on your enemies? You can't. Even now, someone could drop a fork or a spoon and it makes a loud noise. And in your soul, you feel pain, and bitterness, and fear. It's a real horror. [my sister-in-law] was ripped apart by a mine in front of her children. In front of their eyes.
Of all of Vladimir Putin's war crimes in Ukraine, one was the bombing of Izium's Central Hospital.
Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): After this part of the hospital was damaged, a lot of medical services simply became unavailable. Here we had both intensive care and three operating rooms.
When Yuriy Kuznetzov was 14 years old, his grandmother died in his arms. He told us that's why he became a doctor. And we suspect that's why he stayed through the bombardment and occupation and the battle of the mines.
Scott Pelley: When a town loses its hospital, it doesn't just lose the medical care - it loses hope.
Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): The best praise for me was when a woman told me in April of 2022 that "when we heard the hospital was still open, we realized that our town had hope, it could withstand, survive, and [have a] future."
The future of Ukraine will demand devotion and heroic patience. On this day, Yulia Yaroshchuk slowly teased out one Russian mine, with millions more receding from its edge.
Produced by Maria Gavrilovic. Associate producer, Alex Ortiz. Broadcast associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by Sean Kelly.
