- Zelenskyy says Russian troops left thousands of bombs and mines in their wake as they retreated from the north of the country.
- Ukraine believes Russia is shifting east before attacking the Donbass region.
- Zelenskyi said several thousand mines and tripwires were disposed of every day.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian troops retreated and scattered thousands of unexploded bombs, mines and tripwires across parts of northern Ukraine.
In recent weeks, Ukraine said Russia had diverted troops away from Kyiv and launched a concentrated attack on the Donbass region, particularly the strategic port city of Mariupol.
“Security work is underway in the northern regions of our country, from which the occupiers were expelled,” Zelenskyy said in a speech on Monday evening.
“Russian troops left behind tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dangerous objects. These are shells that did not explode, mines, tripwire mines. At least several thousand such objects are disposed of every day.”
During their invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops mined roads and buildings to inflict maximum damage. Russia is also accused of mining a road intended to serve as a humanitarian escape route for Mariupol.
“The occupiers left mines everywhere. In the houses they confiscated. Only on the streets, in the fields. They mined people’s property, cars, doors,” said Zelenskyy.
“They have deliberately done everything to make returning to these areas as dangerous as possible after the dissolution. Due to the actions of the Russian army, our territory is currently one of the most heavily mine-infested in the world.”
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky told Ukrainian TV on Sunday that Russian troops had planted booby-traps in the homes of Ukrainian police officers, first responders and members of the military – including a case where a bomb was found in a washing machine.
Zelenskyy said in early April that Russian forces had also mined “the bodies of the people who were killed.”
In his Monday speech, Zelenskyy said Russia was ready to use chemical weapons for the first time in the Ukraine conflict.
Earlier on Telegram, Ukraine’s Azov regiment, a right-wing paramilitary group, said Russia had used chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces hiding in a steel mill and poisoned several people. The US said it would monitor the reports.
The US and Britain also said they are investigating reports that Russia is using chemical weapons in Mariupol.