Autumn has seen the forests of Ukraine turn gorgeous shades of orange and yellow. In the capital, Kyiv, in the north of the country, families and young lovers stroll in the historic cobbled streets – catching the last rays of sunshine before the bitter winter sets in.
Visiting Kyiv anew, I was once again struck by the beguiling normality of this impressive European city full of churches and monuments.
But this peaceful idyll is an illusion. Ukraine is a country at war – the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two. In the twenty months since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, there have been an estimated 200,000 dead and injured on the Ukrainian side. The Russian total is likely over 300,000.
These figures far exceed the already appalling human toll in Israel and Gaza that is currently dominating our TV screens. But comparing the death rates is not the point. The vital thing is we must not lose attention of either the Middle East or Ukraine.
Six hours drive outside Kyiv, I visited the frontline area straddling the south of Ukraine. It’s a seven-hundred-mile front line, longer than the First World War’s Western Front.
The Russians occupying this line have fortified it with so many landmines it is now the most densely mined area ever seen. There are three layers of minefields, each some 500 yards deep. There are also concrete tank traps - “dragons’ teeth” - and all sorts of Russian missile launchers and other weapons. The Russians clearly want to hang on to their illegal gains.
As I approached this formidable front line by road, I entered a world far from the relative security of Kyiv.
It’s a world of darkened cities deprived of electricity and barren fields that farmers dare not work for fear their ploughs will hit deadly mines.
At one town I drove through, I saw a war-wounded man with one leg hobbling awkwardly across the road. At another I spotted a metal bus shelter that looked more like a giant salad colander – its walls and roof peppered with bullet holes.
We passed a postal sorting office that was hit by the Russians a few days before. According to usually reliable sources, at least six people were killed. The delivery vans and the offices were torn apart by explosions. There was no obvious military target nearby – this appeared to be part of Russia’s effort to make life impossible for ordinary civilians.
I also visited some of the other minefields throughout the country being cleaned up by the landmine clearance charity I head, The Halo Trust.
Near the city of Karkhiv, half an hour’s drive from the Russian border, highly trained Ukrainian deminers were hard at work with their detectors and other equipment making safe, inch by inch, a minefield sown by the Russians to protect one of their former military positions.
In another area just north of the front line, near the city of Mykolaiv, our deminers were fanning out over farmland that in pre-war times had made Ukraine the breadbasket of Europe. Their job – to make the fields safe for farmers to earn a living once again.
These areas can be demined because the Ukrainian army, with the help of western weapons and training, managed to push the much larger Russian force back from some of the areas it tried to occupy. This was an impressive feat by the Ukrainians. But there is much more to be done and many, many more mines to clear.
The Ukrainian army started a summer offensive this year aimed at thrusting southwards and cutting the Russian-occupied part of southern Ukraine in two. This would hamper Moscow’s military supply lines and help Ukraine’s war effort. But the summer offensive has only crept forward slowly, at nowhere near the hoped-for pace.
Meanwhile, Russian troops have launched their own push northwards from the front line, trying to reach further inside Ukraine. This has proved costly for Moscow in terms of dead soldiers and destroyed military equipment; the Ukrainians are so far holding their ground.
The truth is that the war in Ukraine has become relatively static in recent months, with a huge front line and many other areas severely contaminated by lethal land mines. The first pre-requisite to start this cleaning up this hellish mess would be a successful conclusion of the war.
There are encouraging precedents, albeit on a smaller scale. In 2000, Britain spearheaded an effort to save the west African state of Sierra Leone from vicious ‘blood diamond’ rebel forces. The UK committed long term military support and economic resources to rebuild. It worked. Today, Sierra Leone is a peaceful democracy.
What’s required in Ukraine is a much bigger support package and co-ordinated international effort.
It can be done. Ukraine can win. A massive de-mining and rebuilding process would then have to begin.
