Food crisis looms as landmines litter Ukraine farmer’s fields
CISR
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(The Times) When Valeriy Zhivaga’s potato field exploded two days ago, nobody saw it coming. He and his wife, Lyudmila, had walked there countless times with their dogs. His brother, Oleg, had already driven his tractor over it repeatedly while ploughing it in preparation for planting. But as he finished the job in the early afternoon of Wednesday, the village of Makovysche was shaken by a boom.
“It broke the window in the sauna,” Valeriy said. “I had no idea what it was.” He ran out to see his brother, staggering, deafened and reeling beside the smoking ruins of his tractor. A Russian anti-tank mine had exploded beneath its front right wheel. It had sheared the vehicle in half and propelled tractor fragments in every direction.