‘You don’t survive that’: Ukraine sappers dice with death to clear Russian mines

Overworked and underequipped brigades face daily ordeal in the most heavily mined country in the world

Oleksandr Slyusar, a Ukrainian sapper with a ready smile, had spent the last 30 hours under Russian shelling in the recently liberated village of Staromaiorske in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. A rocket fired at them from a Grad system had peppered the legs and back of a fellow landmine-clearer with shrapnel.

Slyusar, 38, had taken his friend west to hospital in Zaporizhzhia city that morning, before arriving back at a secret military base within earshot of the rolling thunder of the Russian guns.