Ukraine has reduced its mined territory by over 20% since late 2022, but around 137,000 square kilometers (52,900 square miles) — much of it farmland — remain hazardous, according to the State Emergency Service.
Editor's note: This story was published in conjunction with Grist. Twenty-two-year-old software developer Artem Motorniuk has spent his entire life in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, living in the north and visiting his grandparents in the south. It’s been almost four years since he’s seen them in person.
Russian drone attacks against a State Emergency Service building in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on June 2 injured 12 employees, Governor Ivan Fedorov reported.
The Kyiv Independent’s contributor Ignatius Ivlev-Yorke spent a day with a mobile team from the State Emergency Service in Nikopol in the south of Ukraine as they responded to relentless drone, artillery, and mortar strikes from Russian forces just across the Dnipro River. Nikopol is located across from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Enerhodar.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine, in partnership with the European Union (EU), has launched an interactive online exhibition titled “Moments Before,” offering an in-depth look into the work of Ukraine’s first responders and police officers amid Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. The exhibition features contributions
Ukraine's State Emergency Service announced Jan. 18 that it received three specialized demining vehicles from Slovenia.
This denial follows opposition MP Oleksii Honcharenko's Telegram post alleging plans for widespread State Emergency Service mobilization after Feb. 28.
The Russian military carried out at least 36 double-tap strikes against Ukraine from the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 to August 2024, killing over 100 people, according to a recent report by Truth Hounds, a Ukrainian non-profit organization that documents and investigates war crimes. Twenty such attacks
At least 21 people were injured overnight on Oct. 28, including five children, as Russia launched multiple air attacks on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv Oblast, State Emergency Service reported.
The passenger bus, which bore the logo of the popular transport company FlixBus, was running from Warsaw to Odesa, said Lviv Oblast Governor Maksym Kozytskyi.
Pyrotechnic teams from Ukraine's State Emergency Service have detected and disposed of over 533,200 pieces of explosive ordnance since Russia's full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022.
Russian forces attacked the city of Kharkiv with guided aerial bombs on Sept. 17, injuring at least seven people, local authorities reported.
The explosion partially destroyed the company's two-story building. People inside the building at the time of the explosion were trapped under the rubble.
A "targeted" Russian drone attack also struck a department of the State Emergency Service in Nikopol, damaging a service car and the fire station but inflicting no casualties, the Interior Ministry said.
Russian forces launched a "double-tap" attack on first responders as they were curbing the aftermath of the previous attack in Sumy Oblast on July 21, the State Emergency Service said.
Half an hour after emergency workers arrived at the scene, Russian troops launched a second attack on the same location, Artem Kostyria, head of the State Emergency Situations Service's branch in Kharkiv Oblast, and police sergeant Oleksiy Koshchii.
A bus collided with a truck in Rivne Oblast, killing 14 people, including a 6-year-old child, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko reported on July 6.
"In March and April (of 2024) alone, Russia’s iterative attacks hitting first responders killed nearly 30 rescue workers in Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia and wounded more than 20," said Timothy Hanway, the acting U.S. envoy to the OSCE.
"Fortunately, there were no casualties among the personnel," the State Emergency Service reported on social media.
Hitting a building, waiting for first responders and the media to arrive, and hitting the same place again to target those who came to put out the fire, help the victims, or document a potential war crime is a well-honed tool of Russia in its wars. This ruthless and illegal
Most recently, Russian forces used such a tactic in a drone attack against Kharkiv overnight on April 4, killing three State Emergency Service employees: 52-year-old Vladyslav Lohinov, 32-year-old Serhii Baidalinov, and 41-year-old Volodymyr Matiushenko.
Ukraine shot down 31 of 34 Shahed-type drones Russia launched overnight on March 23 from Kursk region and Cape Chauda in occupied Crimea, the Air Force said in its morning update.
A fire broke out at the Osokorky Ecopark in Kyiv's Darnytskyi district on the evening of March 5, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. The blaze was extinguished shortly before midnight.
A Russian strike on the Kramatorsk district of Donetsk Oblast killed two rescuers and wounded another three while they were putting out a fire caused by an earlier attack, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko reported on March 4.
A Russian strike on Kharkiv Oblast caused a large fire at a local farm, killing more than twenty pigs, Ukraine's State Emergency Service reported on Feb. 24.
When Russia's drone strike hit a residential building in central Kyiv on the morning of Oct. 17, emergency workers turned up at the scene within minutes. As rescuers worked to put out the fire and clear out the rubble of the severely damaged high-rise apartment complex, medics provided first aid
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