The burnt wreckage of a people carrier can be found in a field in the village of Hoholiv. As it trudged along a dirt road, it collided with an anti-tank mine, killing a father and wounded his children.
Nearby, efforts are underway to avert future tragedies – a delicate operation made possible by the extraordinary generosity of Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail readers.
Hoholiv, a town a few kilometers east of Kyiv, was encircled by Russian invaders earlier this year. Ukrainian forces, determined to block their advance, planted a network of deadly mines.
The Halo Trust organization has begun work to locate and destroy the devices now that Vladimir Putin has abandoned his aim to capture Kyiv, at least for the time being.
Mine detection equipment was purchased with a £250,000 gift from the Mail Force Ukraine Appeal, which has raised a total of £11.9 million.
‘My kid understands that I am performing an important task for him as well – for his safety and the future of our children,’ said Arya Bolotova, 35, the charity’s deputy operations manager in Ukraine. Herman, who is eight years old, excitedly tells his classmates about his mother’s profession.
‘He’s happy of the job I do, and he asks me every day if I detected any mines,’ she explained.
It’s a time-consuming and exhausting job.
Teams search the ground with big metal detectors to discover anti-tank devices before dismantling them, using Ukrainian maps and avoiding Russian booby traps. In Hoholiv, clearing an area spanning less than 300m (330 yards) by 300m will take a month.
The Halo Trust, whose work in Angola in the 1990s was lauded by Princess Diana, has been removing explosives in eastern Ukraine since 2016, but was forced to withdraw in February when Russia invaded.
Its work in western Ukraine will take at least a decade, and workers are worried about what they’ll find when they return to the east, if they ever do.
Colonel Ruslan Bruhulic, who coordinates landmine clearance for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, says that more than 60,000 square miles will need to be searched for the mines, which are preventing many people from returning to regular life.
‘Infrastructure is being impacted,’ he explained. ‘Power supply employees are unable to approach power pylons in some places due to the presence of landmines.
‘People are unable to gather strawberries on their farmland. Mail Force has been quite helpful to us. Your help will ensure local inhabitants’ safety and a return to normalcy.’
An agricultural lorry smolders beside a cornfield in Makariv, west of Kyiv, after colliding with Russian troops’ explosives.
‘This driver luckily survived, but it will make it much more difficult to transport food off the field because the farmers will be frightened that there are more anti-tank mines here,’ said Simon Conway of the Halo Trust as he examined the wreckage.
‘A lot of what we’re doing right now is opening up roads, opening up access… the assistance we’re getting from the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday means these folks will be able to get their food to the market, and people won’t go hungry all over the world.’
At the behest of DMGT chairman Lord Rothermere and Lady Rothermere, the Mail Force Ukraine Appeal was launched with a £500,000 gift from the Mail’s parent business, the Daily Mail and General Trust.