By Olha Hembik | 2025-10-02

WARSAW -- For the fourth year, Ukraine's harvest has become a deadly task. Farmers face bombardments, drone attacks, burning fields, mined land and ruined equipment, turning routine work into acts of survival.

On September 8, a petition appeared on the president's website seeking to award the title of Hero of Ukraine posthumously to farmer Oleksandr Hordiienko. He was killed on September 5 when a Russian drone struck his car.

Hordiienko, head of the Kherson Farmers' Association and a regional council member, farmed in Beryslav District for more than 30 years. Known locally as "Farmer Rambo," he used a shotgun to down more than 200 Russian drones and also deployed electronic warfare systems to protect his fields.

His daughter Alina, who launched the petition, wrote that he "loved the land, worked for the people and was a true patriot." She said that after the liberation of Kherson's right bank, her father cleared thousands of hectares of mines himself, removing more than 5,000 antitank mines.

Hunting farmers

"Drone! Above the truck! Run!" a woman screams in a video posted August 2 by RFE/RL, filmed in Ukraine's Kherson region. Russian forces briefly occupied the area in 2022 before Ukraine reclaimed it.

The footage shows a farming family, including a child, fleeing Russian drones while harvesting melons. RFE/RL reported that farmers in liberated areas have resumed growing crops like watermelons, but the fields remain perilous under drone strikes.

The drones targeted a white van, a clearly civilian vehicle posing no military threat.

In Kherson, Russian forces have used drones to terrorize civilians, with more than 5,000 attacks recorded. Nonmilitary vehicles and even animals have been struck, described by locals as a "human safari."

Military analyst and former Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov called these attacks on civilians, particularly farmers, a war crime.

"This is essentially hunting people, a terrorist act that the global community must recognize as such," he told Kontur.

He urged law enforcement and special forces to investigate and target the drone operators responsible for civilian deaths.

Seleznyov said Russia's goal is that "if they can't seize territory, they leave scorched earth behind."

Environmental threats

The war is devastating Ukrainian territory on multiple fronts, with the environment suffering some of the most severe and lasting damage, according to Mykhailo Volynets, head of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine.

Volynets monitors the status of all Ukrainian mines, including those in occupied and abandoned areas.

He warned that mismanaged coal operations and the halt of proper maintenance, without adequate preservation measures, are triggering environmental crises already harming the country's agriculture.

"The world needs to assess [the military actions in Ukraine] from the perspective of environmental threats," Volynets told Kontur.

He pointed to acid mine drainage as a major threat: highly acidic water laced with heavy metals that endangers farmland.

As it evaporates, the water leaves salt deposits that "kill" the soil and make it unfarmable. Left unchecked, it destroys vegetation, kills livestock and reduces crop yields.

"This contaminated water merges and spreads over 600 kilometers. It ends up in the Siverskyi Donets River, the Don River and then the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea," Volynets explained.

He noted that forest cover had protected Donbas soil from salinity for 60 to 70 years. "Because of the war, all of that was burned and destroyed. There are just a few stubs left," he said.

A minefield

On September 14, Russian forces struck the outskirts of a village in the Boromlia community, Sumy region, targeting a field where farmers were harvesting, the regional military administration said on Telegram.

Eleven workers were hospitalized, one in critical condition. Tractors and combines were damaged, and sappers must now clear mines and fragments.

Clearing such land often falls to Humanitarian Security, a company demining farmland in Kharkiv region. Engineer Oleh Semerei told Kontur they encounter antivehicular and antipersonnel mines, cluster munitions and drones, including "butterfly mines."

The arsenal retrieved from wheat and corn fields includes Uragan, Smerch and Grad rockets, as well as air-to-surface, surface-to-surface and air-to-air missiles.

"We're finding many different kinds of cluster munitions, even some we’ve never seen before," Semerei said, noting the rapid evolution of weapons.

He warned that the longer the war continues, the more varied the arsenal will be and the harder it will become to restore farmland. Contamination "will grow exponentially."

With EU and US help, Semerei estimated large-scale demining of farmland could take five to 10 years, though settlements hit hardest by bombing will remain the priority. He compared the effort to Croatia, where demining has continued decades after the 1991-95 war.

"The most important thing is to clear the agricultural land," he said. "Even in towns and villages without people, it is becoming the main driver for settlement."