Clearing The Lethal Litter Of War

Ukrainian sappers carry an unexploded shell away from a destroyed tank near Motyzhyn, a village west of Kyiv, on April 10. 

A sapper carefully picks up a bomblet from a cluster munition in Motyzhyn on April 10. Cluster bombs are containers filled with scores of such bomblets designed to scatter across a large area and explode on impact. More than 100 countries have signed a treaty banning their use, but neither Ukraine nor Russia are signatories. 

A sapper carries one of several unexploded shells discovered near Motyzhyn on April 10. Ukraine's state emergency agency has warned civilians of "many" potentially lethal explosives that lurk in areas recently freed from Russian occupation. 

Shells near a captured Russian tank on the outskirts of Kyiv on April 5. The Ukrainian authorities have asked civilians not to light any fires in wilderness areas, and to warn children "almost daily" against picking up any unfamiliar objects. 

Sappers remove an unexploded FAB-500 bomb after an air strike on Kharkiv. The techniques of bomb disposal are shrouded in secrecy due to the lethal history of one-upmanship between designers and those tasked with defusing munitions. Some bombs are fitted with "anti-handling devices" that are designed to detonate when tampered with. 

An unguided bomb, flattened by impact, pictured in an apartment in the northern city of Chernihiv. A video of Ukrainian bomb disposal experts at work shows them pouring water over the nose of a bomb similar to the one seen here before carefully unscrewing the detonation fuse and carrying it away. 

A Ukrainian serviceman carries a rocket-propelled grenade left behind after a battle in Kyiv on February 26. 

A member of a Ukrainian explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team carries a dog named Patron (Cartridge) near Chernihiv on April 6. Patron is a Jack Russell terrier trained to sniff out explosive devices. 
 

An explosives specialist pulls out a piece of a rocket lodged next to a road in the north of Kharkiv on March 24. 

Sappers work to remove a machine gun from the shell of a Russian tank near Motyzhyn on April 10. 

An unexploded Tochka missile is seen after crashing to Earth near Kramatorsk on March 9. Such missiles are capable of carrying a warhead of high explosive weighing nearly half a ton.  

Piles of unexploded ordnance, including 120-millimeter mortar shells, and the frame of a cluster bomb (right), after sorting by an EOD team near Chernihiv on April 6. 

A woman walks past the tail section of a Smerch rocket in the Kharkiv region on April 7. Some of the rockets used by Russian forces split into two pieces while in flight, with the "carrier" section (seen here) impacting separately from the warhead. But although most tail sections like this are largely harmless, it can be impossible to know whether the warhead is still attached and many bomb disposal experts treat all such tail sections as unexploded ordnance. 

A photographer looks on as a Ukrainian sapper detonates a pile of munitions that were uncovered in and around Motyzhyn on April 10.