Main content

Ukraine mine clearance

Three Ukrainian women go to Kosovo to learn how to defuse bombs and help their country.

Ukrainians have been living with the horrors of war, amid attacks from Russian troops, for more than two months.

We hear from three Ukrainian women who have decided to take on a dangerous task, to try and make their country safer. They each decided to do an 18-day training course in Kosovo to learn how to clear landmines.

One of the women is from eastern Ukraine and had seen the problems of unexploded landmines and booby traps first-hand, after the Russian invasion there in 2014.

“People, farmers, when starting cultivating fields after the conflict, they often faced problems,” says Yulia. “There were cases with children. When they find some small things that look like a pen, for example, but it’s actually a fuse and they start playing with it. Then tragedy happens.”

They admit that some family and friends don’t want them to complete the course because they don’t want them to start undertaking this precarious task.

We also cross into Moldova, which is the smallest of seven countries bordering Ukraine. It has taken in more than 437,000 Ukrainian refugees. There have been concerns that its breakaway Russian-controlled region of Transnistria could be where Russia moves in next.

Three residents in Moldova share their thoughts on the war on their doorstep, how they are helping refugees and their concerns that the conflict could spill over the border.

(Photo: Anastasiia. Credit: MAT Kosovo's EOD & ERW Training Establishment, Peja, Kosovo)

Available now

23 minutes

Last on

Sun 8 May 2022 00:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Sat 7 May 2022 08:06GMT
  • Sat 7 May 2022 18:06GMT
  • Sat 7 May 2022 19:06GMT
  • Sat 7 May 2022 23:06GMT
  • Sun 8 May 2022 00:06GMT