Small, Hidden and Deadly: Mines Stymie Ukraine’s Counteroffensive

In the south, Ukrainian troops are attacking in at least three locations but have not broken through the Russians’ main lines of defense. Mines are not the only difficulty they face. As they advance, Ukrainian soldiers move out of range of some of their air-defense systems and become vulnerable to Russian attack helicopters.

By this week, at its farthest point of advance, south of the village of Velyka Novosilka, the Ukrainian army had pushed a bulge about five miles deep into Russian lines. At the point where the soldiers became stranded in a minefield, south of the town of Orikhiv, Ukraine has advanced about a mile. To reach the Sea of Azov and cut supply lines to Russian-occupied Crimea, an objective in the counteroffensive, Ukraine must advance about 60 miles.

One bright spot as they fight through the minefields, Ukrainian soldiers say, is the protection provided by Western armored vehicles.

Where they have been used, these vehicles have not enabled the Ukrainian military to cross minefields, but they have saved lives with superior armor that protects against the blasts.

The American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, with layered aluminum and steel armor, roll over anti-personnel mines with impunity. They are immobilized by Russian antitank mines, hefty circular devices that are laden with about 15 pounds of TNT, often without causing serious injury to the soldiers inside.

Denys, a military surgeon at another stabilization point near the front, said troops injured by mine explosions while riding in Bradleys fared much better than those in Soviet-legacy armored vehicles, and that the main consequence was a concussion rather than the loss of a limb.

“The Americans made this machine to save the lives of the crew,” said Serhiy, the private on the rescue team, who is now operating in his third Bradley after two earlier vehicles hit antitank mines. The second occurred when he and others were sent to evacuate wounded infantry stranded in a minefield.