With Russians gone from Kyiv region, crews move in to clear deadly booby traps left behind

When Russian soldiers finally left Yuriy Deshko's trucking company, where they had holed up during their occupation of the town of Hostomel outside Kyiv, two weeks ago, they made sure the Ukrainians cleaning up the mess they left behind found some deadly surprises.

They left a grenade in the cab of a truck, designed to go off when the door was opened. Another was hidden under the seat cushion of a different vehicle, intended to kill whoever sat down to drive. A third was found wedged between the giant wheels of another vehicle.   

And wires strung between land mines encircled the compound where Deshko's Transcom Group company had parked dozens of expensive trucks. The Russians had apparently planned to detonate them in case of an attack, but instead, they ended up as lethal devices for Ukrainians to contend with in the aftermath of the occupation. 

"There were seven booby traps on this territory," said Deshko, as he walked around the property with a CBC News crew recently.   

The company, which leases out tractor-trailers, had several dozen of the huge vehicles on the lot when the Russians invaded in early March, but only about half remain undamaged, Deshko said.   

Most of the rest are now blackened and burned hulks — destroyed during the Russian soldiers' time on the property. Deshko estimates the damage at more than $15 million Cdn.

Every vehicle, including the damaged ones, had to be thoroughly checked for booby traps, and members of the local Territorial Defence Force, a volunteer auxiliary branch of the military that includes civilians, were called in to remove them, spending several hours on each truck.

"It's a big job," said Ihor Smorodynov, who heads the detachment that includes the mine clearing unit in nearby Irpin.

"It's not known where the mines are. Everywhere they went, they left mines, and it will take more than a year (to demine). 

"It's not only buildings, cars. It's fields, forests — dogs run through the forests and explode on the mine wires." 

Ukraine's Interior Ministry estimates demining units have found and deactivated more than 50,000 mines and unexploded pieces of ammunition since the beginning of April, when Russian troops pulled out of the areas around Kyiv.

Samantha Power of USAID, which has a disaster response team in Ukraine, said on Twitter this week that about half the country's territory requires demining and that the State Emergency Service is removing 2,000 to 6,000 mines a day. 

The Interior Ministry has not released a comprehensive list of people killed or wounded by unexploded devices left behind by Russians but has reported several such incidents.

In the village of Nalyvaikivka, west of Kyiv, a car drove over a mine on a rural road, injuring the driver and her companion, it said.