This is the sixth controlled explosion by 34-year-old Opanasenko and his demining unit since Russia withdrew its forces from the Kiev region earlier this month. Today, they detonated 16 unexploded artillery shells, each weighing about 45 kilograms (almost 100 pounds), in an explosion. They have another 30 shells to go through before the day is over. Their unit is one of many operating in the area. In all, they say they have destroyed 2.5 tonnes of ammunition in the past week and a half alone. “If we are all alive, then everything is successful,” says Opanasenko. As Russian forces retreated, they left behind dozens of unexploded ordnance and bombs, in addition to landmines planted to slow Ukrainian advance, to protect their withdrawal, or perhaps simply to burn the earth. Mines, ammunition and rusty machine guns from damaged armored vehicles can be dangerous for civilians now returning home, so Opanasenko’s unit goes from village to village, searching the ground for any of these deadly munitions to be killed. Mine warning signs are visible in towns and villages around Kyiv. Units like Opanasenko’s will continue to work for months to be found across the country as the war rages, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES). “From now on, we have to investigate more than 300,000 hectares,” SES chief Serhiy Kruk told reporters last Wednesday. “Therefore, in cooperation with the Armed Forces and the National Police of Ukraine, we are actively working and doing everything possible to return people and restore livelihoods,” he said, adding that Kyiv would be a model for similar efforts in other areas. At a different location near the capital, Opanasenko shows CNN another dangerous piece of ammunition found in a backyard. It has a tube shape, with a blunt red tip and six fins that look like fins at the end. “It’s one of the elements of a cluster bomb that falls from a plane,” he says. “There are about 50 such elements in a bomb.” “It’s an extremely explosive fragmentation bomb to kill people, designed just to kill people,” Opanasenko added, before dropping it. His unit has found several of these explosives around the Ukrainian capital, he says. Russian forces have been accused of regularly using cluster munitions against political targets in Ukraine. Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Watch’s mission in Ukraine said it had received credible allegations that the Russian armed forces had used cluster munitions at least 24 times. Such attacks “could amount to war crimes,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michel Bachelet at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Greater effort

Minesweeping goes hand in hand with other clean-up efforts, as residents of the Kiev region begin to embrace their new reality and try to return to what is left of their ruined lives after Russia’s departure.
About 30,000 people have returned to the area, according to local authorities. Some businesses reopen and traffic increases significantly. Some military checkpoints have also been removed from the city’s arteries and some public transport is returning. As they do so, authorities continue to remove debris from the streets, including shells from damaged tanks and other armored vehicles. It’s a seemingly endless cleansing task for public officials, especially those in charge of collecting bodies caught in the fire. Rows of graves for soldiers and civilians have recently been dug in the central cemetery in Irpin, a suburb of Kiev. Here, military burials take place successively. Russia may be reorganizing, shifting its forces to the East, but the war is not over – and there is no moment. Tetiana Blizniuk is surrounded by her husband’s companions as his body rests shortly before sunset, the last of the day burials for members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. When she last saw her husband, Oleksandr Lytkin, she promised to return immediately, says Bliznyuk. “(She was killed by) a mortar shell,” she says, her eyes still swollen red. “I am very proud of him, he is a hero.” “It’s so scary! No one thought it was possible in the 21st century,” he said, adding that the war “must stop.” Its pain is shared by millions of people around Kyiv as the death and destruction left by the Russian invading forces become more and more visible.