Women from Ukraine find solidarity and a sense of mission on a demining course far from home.
PEJA, KOSOVO | On a crisp autumn afternoon, 24 Ukrainians – mostly women – gather around a rusty, Soviet-era FAB-500 bomb in a rugged training field set against the dramatic peaks of Montenegro and Albania. This is just practice, but back home, where war continues to rage, they handle explosives as part of the daily routine, clearing the deadly remnants left by retreating Russian forces. These dangers – mines, unexploded bombs, artillery shells – now lurk in fields, roadsides, and the rubble of shattered cities.
The scale of this mission is unprecedented, say international experts. In three years of war, land mines and other explosive remnants have contaminated vast stretches of Ukraine, making it the most heavily mined country in the world, according to the UN. These women – once baristas, CEOs, beauty specialists, environmental activists, software developers, mothers, students – have been thrust into mine-clearing work, united by one goal: to make their homeland, the “breadbasket of the world,” safe for living and farming again.
As deminers in Ukraine, they spend their days scouring bombed farmland and once-occupied villages, places riddled with hidden danger, stepping in after military sappers have cleared areas of immediate threats to help families return home and rebuild their lives. They are pioneers in a role that, until recently, was off-limits to women. Already certified to perform basic humanitarian demining work, they’ve come to the Mine Action & Training (MAT) center in Kosovo in the western city of Peja – a leading demining training school with a history rooted in Kosovo’s own war – to sharpen their skills and take more leadership and responsibility in this urgent task. The school trains experts from around the globe, but since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has placed a special focus on Ukraine, with international donors funding the training of 436 Ukrainians so far.
On that September afternoon, during the third week of a five-week Level 3 Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) course, the school’s second-most advanced, the 16 women and eight men are learning how to disarm a “full-house” bomb – a 500-kilogram relic similar to those that litter Ukraine’s fields. Instructor Stew Burgess, a former British Air Force weapons expert, points to the bomb’s smallest yet deadliest component: the fuze. “This is the only piece that goes ‘bang,’ ” he explains. Everything else is just propulsion and payload. Some fuzes are booby-trapped, others dangerously unstable, primed to detonate at the slightest movement. “They’re meant to kill.”
“You need to find the fuze and remove it,” Burgess instructs the class, with a note of urgency. Beside him, Anastasiia Minchukova, a 23-year-old former linguistics student, translates his words into Ukrainian. In April 2022, she was among the first Ukrainians to attend the school. Since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, she had known that “when I grow up, I won’t have a choice; I will have to fight.” But when war broke out, she was denied a frontline role because of her age. “A mine doesn’t care if you’re a man or a woman. We need everyone willing and capable. Ukraine cannot afford to overlook its women,” she says.
Nika Kokareva, 40, listens intently. For six months, she’s led a team clearing a gigantic sunflower field near the front line in her home region of Mykolaiv, ensuring the farmer could return to his harvest. Her work – methodically combing the soil with a big loop detector and, sometimes, a specially trained dog – is painstaking and closely regulated. Mine Advisory Group (MAG), the organization she works for, has yet to be certified to defuse explosives, she says, so she relies on Ukraine’s State Emergency Services (DSNS) for the disposal of the hazardous devices. But at MAT Kosovo, she is training to be ready for the moment she can do it herself.
“Here in Peja, I want to practice, to learn how to remove the fuze, to do a demolition, to decide if an explosive is safe to move or not,” she says. “That’s why I’m here: We have another 10 or 20 years of work ahead of us.”
Her quiet resolve is echoed by a growing number of Ukrainian women entering the high-risk field of humanitarian demining – a profession that, until recently, was legally off-limits to women in their country due to old Soviet-era holdover ideology.
Also see: Slow Steps Through a Minefield: How Ukrainian startups are betting on cheap tech to save lives and get the country’s vital farms back in business.
A School Born From Conflict
MAT Kosovo is housed in a former Balkan-style mansion, with prefab classrooms, a canteen, and dorms for 46 people. The school grounds simulate real demining scenarios – minefields, city streets, and even a genuine tank. “If it weren’t for the Kosovo War, this school wouldn’t exist,” says John Doone, the school manager and a former British soldier.
In 1999, Serbian forces’ assault against Albanian separatists, followed by NATO airstrikes, left Kosovo littered with explosive remnants of war. Humanitarian groups flooded the region, turning Peja into a hub for demining expertise. Founded in 2010 by another former British soldier, Ben Remfrey, MAT Kosovo has trained thousands from over 100 countries, often in conflict zones like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Libya, and Iraq. What makes MAT Kosovo unique, according to Doone, is its adherence to the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) – the globally recognized framework for humanitarian demining operations – and its hands-on training approach.
“We don’t just do the theory. We use explosives and advanced techniques to blow up and render safe a variety of live and dangerous types of munition,” Doone says.
The return of war to Europe gave the school renewed regional focus. Even beforefighting erupted in Ukraine in 2022, Renfrey, the school founder and managing director, had already been advising Ukrainian agencies and training deminers. Predicting the scale of the threat, he persuaded the Ukrainian authorities to include women in demining, secured funding, and invited the first group of eight women to a specialized course. By the end of 2024, over 400 Ukrainians, including 85 women, will have been trained in Peja – 187 this year alone. While an “all-inclusive” four- to five-week course costs about 6,000 euros, two charities – Jersey Overseas Aid and the Canada-based Mriya Aid – have borne most of the training costs. Remfrey insists he doesn’t want to make money by training the Ukrainians.
Training for Real War
Over one weekend during the course, some trainees visited Albania; others went hiking or running in the Accursed Mountains; and many stayed behind to study. There are no classes on weekends. “They’ve gone through a lot and need a break,” Doone says.
This week, a record 58 trainees were at the school. In addition to the 24 Ukrainians, the mixed group included an American student, members of the Qatari national police, and a British war photographer. But the Ukrainian group is unique: They are the only students who will return to a live war zone after their training.
It’s now week three of the Level 3 EOD course. The countdown begins. In a three-year-old prefab classroom built to accommodate the school’s growth, the instructor reviews the schedule leading to final exams. “There’s going to be a lot of pressure from now on,” says Burgess, preparing the class for theoretical and practical tests that will lead to an internationally recognized EOD certification. The Ukrainian trainees will face multiple-choice questions on identifying explosives: when it’s safe to move munitions and when it’s not. At a secluded live explosive demolitions training range outside Kosovo, they will practice making an unexploded bomb in a building safe by blowing up the fuze, causing minimal damage rather than blowing the entire bomb and destroying the entire building.
One key test will be the “spot task,” where trainees must practice dealing with an immediate threat, such as when someone reports a suspicious object. These tasks are carried out under close supervision, but there is always an element of risk when handling live explosives. “You cannot fail the spot task,” Burgess says. “If you pass without earning it, you’re a danger to yourself and others.”
Beside him, Yevheniia Sukhonos, a former NATO translator who after the 2022 invasion volunteered to translate Ukrainian news into English before being trained as a deminer in Peja, interprets his words. “In war, everyone finds a way to contribute,” she says. “Precise translation in this field can be a matter of life and death.”
At 9 a.m., the trainees observe a minute of silence for those lost in Ukraine’s fight for freedom – a solemn reminder of the stakes. Then, Iryna, an energetic woman with a wide smile, presents the results of her assignment, when she led a team surveying a mock minefield set up by instructors in the nearby mountains. Students spent a day there, looking for signs like disturbed soil, broken branches, and animal tracks – all possible indications of hidden dangers – and interviewed locals and combed through old documents for clues.
The instructor pushes for specifics. Humanitarian demining is a meticulous, slow job. Sometimes, only five or 10 meters per day, depending on the terrain. “How long would this job take?” the instructor asks Iryna. “The landowner will want his land back, and a wrong estimate won’t cut it.”
Iryna, who works for the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD), takes the challenge seriously. “I’m not afraid of taking risks,” she says later. “My whole life has been about overcoming obstacles.” She admits, though, that “the most emotionally difficult part of my job is to have gone to the Donetsk area and seen the damage caused by the Russians.” Before the war, she ran her own elevator repair business from Kyiv, until Russian bombing made things difficult because “fixing elevators was the least of anyone’s worries when there was no power or water.”
Classroom of Memories
“Dmytro (Dima) Yershov Memorial Classroom, 30.01.1992–03.12.2023” reads the sign on the classroom door. Below, a photo captures his infectious smile. Once a surfing instructor in Sri Lanka, he returned to Ukraine to defend his home town of Chernihiv. In July 2022, his car hit an anti-tank mine near Izyum, killing everyone but him. Severely injured, he could have retired on a disability pension. Instead, he trained as a deminer in Peja. Months later, complications from the initial mine explosion took his life, two weeks before the birth of his first child. “He was unforgettable – loud, funny, so full of life,” recalls Sukhonos, the interpreter. “It’s hard to believe he’s not here anymore.”
Dmytro Yershov’s story underscores the dangers; several hundred Ukrainians, perhaps as many as 1,000 by some estimates, have died in mine-related accidents since the war began.
During the morning coffee break, trainees gather outside. For many, this mission is deeply personal.Giulnara Makarets, 50, got into humanitarian mine clearance after fleeing rebel-occupied Donetsk in 2014 and then Mariupol in 2022. Veronica Mykhailova, the youngest at 20, swapped a barista job in Kyiv to clear minefields in Kharkiv, despite her mother’s pleas not to do it. “The men are on the front line; the women are demining. We’re all doing our part,” she says.
Nadia Chygrina, far from her 7-year-old daughter in Brovary, left a career as a cosmetician, and her family is proud, she says. Oksana Omelchuk turned to demining when bombings hindered her fieldwork in Ukraine’s national parks. “It’s really difficult to convince people to preserve nature when people are dying, losing their homes and jobs. It’s difficult to plan for the distant future when we cannot even plan our day due to shelling,” says the 35-year-old. She’s now clearing farmland near Mykolaiv for MAG, a chance to “do socially important work and be outdoors all the time.”
Natalia Myronenko, impeccably dressed in the brown uniform of the Ukrainian Deminers Association (UDA), takes a long drag from her cigarette, relishing the break. The Kosovar mountains rise sharply behind her. Before the war, she was in charge of quality control on large construction sites, but she had wanted to use her maternity leave to explore a new career. Drawn to makeup and fashion, she’d considered pursuing interior design. The war changed everything. As demand for humanitarian deminers grew, her skills in oversight led her to a new career, and now she is in charge of quality control. By now, she’s overcome the initial shock when she realized that “war has become my job.”
“I like stylish things, beautiful spaces, but this job is far more interesting. I wouldn’t want to do anything else,” Myronenko says.
As in her previous career, she ensures that others’ work meets the highest standards, but now the stakes are life and death. “It’s all about safety,” says the mother of two. “Most importantly,” she adds, “it benefits my country.”
“No Break From the War”
Lunch is served in the school’s main building. The trainees eat in silence, often scrolling through their phones. Svitlana Nagorna’s phone vibrates with an air raid alert. “There is no break from the war,” she says. Her family remains near Kyiv. While on the job leading a team near Mykolaiv that assesses if and to what extent land is contaminated, her thoughts often return home. A literature and theater lover, the 29-year-old bears a heavy responsibility. “If I sign off on a report saying an area is safe, it’s on me if anything goes wrong.”
She’s seen devastation up close. Villages like Ternovi Pody and Liubomyrivka, which were once occupied by the Russians, still haunt her. She had come from a Kyiv suburb battered by missile strikes, only to encounter villagers who had “lost everything, even their roofs, but they were still positive.” There, retreating Russians had put booby traps in people’s homes before leaving. “Nothing surprises me anymore – I know what the Russians are capable of,” she says. Early on, Nagorna would cry alone at night but hide her emotions when working with villagers because “they need my support.”
Once dreaming of TV work, Nagorna left her job curating Soviet-era films shortly after the war broke out because it no longer felt right. An ad for a mine-awareness teacher for the Ukrainian Deminers Association caught her eye. “They called me within 15 minutes,” she recalls. She would start as a teacher and then move into demining. “I knew it was dangerous, but also knew they would train me.” Her family urges her to come home, but she’s found her calling; the MAT Kosovo training, she says, will help her better assess village safety “just by looking.” Only her sister fully supports her choice. “She sees how much I’ve grown,” Nagorna says. “I used to take everything to heart, but now I know it could destroy me. We’re only at the beginning. We need clear minds for this work.”
Women Leading the Way
“The sector is growing in front of our eyes,” says MAT alumna Iryna Kustovska. As head of operations for the Ukrainian Deminers Association, overseeing hundreds of sappers, she is one of Ukraine’s highest-ranking demining professionals. “Sadly, humanitarian demining is going to remain a priority for a long time.”
A drone-regulation adviser for the Ukrainian aviation authority before the war, she changed trajectory after bombs fell near her home, prompting her to move, and a news story caught her eye. It was about the first eight Ukrainian women volunteering to get trained as sappers in Peja. With men unable to leave Ukraine, women were stepping up – writing history. “I told myself, why am I not there?” Weeks later, she found herself hundreds of kilometers away in Kosovo, part of the second cohort of mainly female Ukrainian trainees at MAT Kosovo. She went back to Peja twice, eventually graduating at the top of her class – and as the only woman – in the school’s most advanced courses, usually reserved for military experts and weapons engineers from around the world.
In Ukraine, Kustovska became the quality-control engineer at Demining Solutions, one of a growing number of Ukrainian private demining companies working alongside international humanitarian organizations like Halo Trust and the Swiss FSD. “When I started, women in demining were a novelty. Now, it’s just, ‘Okay, you’re a woman in demining,’ ” she says from Kyiv.
Today, women make up a third of Ukraine’s humanitarian deminers, estimated at roughly 4,000 although precise numbers are hard to track down. For women in particular, “there will be many jobs, not just for deminers, but in leadership and management, too,” Kustovska says. In her opinion, gender plays no role in the recruiting process, but she says women bring a unique perspective, excelling at “thinking outside the box” and multitasking.
That’s important, as shifting front lines makes the threat of mine contamination ever more widespread and complex, with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) found in de-occupied territories. There have been documented instances of explosives hidden in everyday objects like pianos or teddy bears. For Kustovska, this is “a cruel fantasy.”
An Unprecedented Challenge
When lead instructor Artur Tigani first met the Ukrainian women at the beginning of the war, in 2022, he saw echoes of his own history. As a former Kosovo Liberation Army fighter, Tigani had also faced a powerful adversary – Serbian forces – and witnessed his homeland’s devastation. By the war’s end, his native Peja was in ruins, littered with unexploded ordnance. “I could see it in their eyes – the fear, the pain,” Tigani recalls. “It was like looking into a mirror of my past.”
After the war, Tigani struggled with trauma, turning to alcohol until a Norwegian NGO introduced him to humanitarian demining. He eventually joined MAT Kosovo, training experts from some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones – from Rwanda to Syria and Iraq. Yet, what he’s seen in Ukraine surpasses anything he has ever encountered. “There’s no point in talking days, years, or decades to clear Ukraine,” he says. “It’s going to go on forever.” Fields that once fed the world are now mined, playgrounds are death traps, and vital infrastructure is off-limits.
“Kosovo was contaminated with munitions because of NATO’s intervention to help us – it’s something we can manage,” Tigani says. Though explosive devices are still found 25 years after NATO’s 77-day bombing campaign, Western nations cover most of the cost. “So we just keep our mouths shut and clear it – and, come on, we are free!” But Ukraine is 55 times bigger than Kosovo. Apart from millions of landmines, he mentions old, poorly maintained Soviet munitions, many with a 50% failure rate.
“There are millions of unexploded devices scattered across playgrounds, streets, and fields,” Tigani says. “It’s beyond comprehension.” Farmers are bearing the brunt of the damage. “Our role is clear,” Tigani declares. “We must deliver the best training possible.”
Nika Kokareva collapses in exhaustion after a grueling week of Level 3 training. “This course is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I cannot afford to fail,” she says. “I want to finish clearing the land around my city – it means everything to me. Then I hope to head east.”
Before the war, Kokareva lived an adventure-filled life, working in high-end hotels and going diving in exotic places like Egypt and Cambodia. At 40, she’d wanted to return home, closer to her brother and mother in Mykolaiv. The war shattered those plans.
In the early days of the invasion, Kokareva sheltered with her family as bombs rained down on Mykolaiv. She briefly fled to Poland but returned because “I didn’t want to be a refugee.” While the city itself feels safer now, she says, the surrounding regions remain perilous. For months, she witnessed things she doesn’t like to talk about, until she realized that grief was a luxury she couldn’t afford. “It consumes too much energy.” Inspired by a young female deminer, she took action and trained in demining. “I love risk and adventure,” she says. “I wanted to be in the field, finding the dangers and clearing the mines.”
That evening in Peja, she grows nostalgic, scrolling through old Facebook videos of herself diving in distant seas. “It was so different from the life I have now,” she says, “but I’m glad I got to live it.”
A Family Built Through Danger
In Peja, trainees and instructors share a common mission, meals, and stories, forming bonds like family. “With every course, the demining family grows bigger,” Yevheniia Sukhonos says. “But with it, our worries grow, too.”
John Doone, the school’s manager, admires these women’s dedication. “Family members are on the front line, and they want to help in any way they can,” he says. “The ones who come here are eager to learn. They understand the stakes; there is no margin for error – one mistake could be your last.” Hasan Sleiman, an instructor from Lebanon who has survived three wars, feels a deep connection to the trainees. “This job stays with you 24/7,” he says. “Everyone has dreams, but when you grow up in places like Kosovo, Ukraine, and Lebanon, circumstances often shape your future.”
It’s winter now, weeks after Nika Kokareva and the other 23 Ukrainian deminers earned their Level 3 certification in Kosovo. There’s a sense of tangible urgency. Snow will soon slow the humanitarian deminers’ progress in Mykolaiv, making the physically demanding work even harder. “We have to finish the fields – farmers are waiting,” Kokareva says. Sometimes a desperate farmer, unwilling to hold back, will risk using a field that hasn’t been fully cleared. It’s dangerous.
Kokareva reflects on how much she has learned at MAT Kosovo. “With my training, I see the fields differently now. I understand what I see in front of me,” she says. “Sometimes we find pieces of something that’s already exploded, but it doesn’t mean it’s safe.”
One memory from Peja sticks – that of blowing up a suspicious explosive device’s fuze on a demolition range. It was the first time she’d done a “demolition” to try to make an explosive safe. “It was very exciting. Hopefully, we will have a chance to use it. It’s a nice feeling when you destroy the horrible things that kill people.
“This work takes all your energy and time, but I love it,” she says. “Even after the war ends, we’ll still be doing this for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.”
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Isabelle de Pommereau is a freelance journalist writing for international news outlets such as The Christian Science Monitor, Alternatives Economiques, and New Eastern Europe. Based in Frankfurt, Germany, she often writes on issues around the transformation of ex-Soviet countries.
All photos by Isabelle de Pommereau.
