Ukraine is Now the Most Mined Country in the World

The minefields along the front in Ukraine are getting out of hand.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said, “The casualties that the Ukrainians are suffering on this offensive are not so much from Russian airpower, but from minefields.”

Soldiers on the ground in Ukraine can confirm the sheer volume of mines they are encountering — Russian and Soviet military doctrine has always taken a cavalier approach to minelaying. But this is above and beyond the already mine-crazy Russian mining playbook.

Speaking to a Canadian-based Ukrainian news source, Ryan Hendrickson, a former U.S. Army Special Forces engineer who specialized in de-mining in Iraq and Afghanistan, recently described the chaos:

“The biggest difference [between Afghanistan and Ukraine] is the sheer number of mines. There are millions and millions of mines in Ukraine.”

In one small farm field, Hendrickson found 700 mines, although he estimates that there were thousands in total.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have extensively used anti-tank mines in at least six regions: Donetsk, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia.

But Russia appears to have lost its damn mind.

Dropping millions of mines, knowing that they may never all be found and cleared, is a telling look into Russia’s overall strategic plans.