Technicians in Ukraine in a race against time to remove unexploded land mines before winter
Fox News joins a team dedicated to removing deadly unexploded ordnances left behind by Russia
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The clock is ticking in Ukraine to remove deadly unexploded land mines left behind by Russian forces before the ground freezes this winter.
Fox News correspondent Jeff Paul joined a team of brave technicians working tirelessly near the capital Kyiv to locate and remove the explosives so Ukrainians can start to recover from Russian President Vladimir Putin's bloody assault.
"I'm not afraid, I'm not nervous, but I feel a great responsibility for what I'm doing," Natalya Kalnytska, a technician from The HALO Trust, told Paul. "I want to do something specific for my country here and now."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Paul reported that The HALO Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to war cleanup, still had technicians in Ukraine de-mining the Donbas region from 2014 when Putin invaded earlier this year.
UKRAINE WARNS OF ‘NUCLEAR TERRORISM’ AFTER STRIKE NEAR PLANT
Destroyed houses are pictured in Vilhivka village near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, May 11. (Reuters/Ricardo Moraes)
They anticipate it will take years to completely finish the task as portions of the country remain in shambles.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Almost equally as devastating is the impact it's having on the food supply," Paul reported. "Acres and acres of farmland just left to sit and rot because of the potential mines and explosives that have yet to be found, and this is just one piece of farmland in an entire country that's at war."
"Their focus right now is on clearing liberated areas like here in the key region, but their hope is to move east one day when the war is over," he continued.
Mairi Cunningham, a program manager at HALO, detailed just how devastating the impacts of the war have been on the Ukrainian people as the cleanup effort continues.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
"It's devastating and indiscriminate," Cunningham told Paul. "And it's the fact that even in areas where the conflict has left and people are trying to get back to normal life, they can't when there's [these] underlying threats."
According to United Nations data, more than 7.4 million Ukrainians have fled the war-torn nation seeking refuge in Europe.