A Ukrainian farmer was killed when he drove his tractor over a landmine planted by the Russians in a field north of Kyiv.
This occurred in the area where previously large Russian military units had gathered to encircle the Ukrainian capital, but have since been withdrawn by Moscow.
On April 13, around 3:00 PM, the police in the Chernihiv region received a report that a tractor with a trailer exploded after striking a mine near the village of Nova Basan in the Donin region, according to the Polish agricultural news site TPR.
Officers stated that a 42-year-old farmer was towing waste with his tractor. The summoned bomb disposal unit was able to neutralize a second mine.
Another Ukrainian farmer from the Kharkiv area was luckier; at the end of March, he also drove over a mine with an MTZ Belarus tractor, which detonated. The sturdy construction of that machine probably saved the tractor driver’s life.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, responded: ‘The occupiers left mines everywhere. In the houses they captured, in the streets, in the fields. They deliberately did everything to make the return to these areas as dangerous as possible. As a result of the actions of the Russian military, our territory is currently one of the most heavily mined areas in the world. I believe this should also be regarded as a war crime,’ Zelenskiy said.
According to Ukrainian sources, the Russian army deliberately left anti-personnel mines at many locations throughout Ukraine, which now pose a serious danger to the country’s residents. An advisor to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs, Vadym Denisenko, estimated that the active demining period after the war will last at least several years.