24-year-old foreign deminer came to clear Russia’s mines in Kherson. Russian shelling killed him and wounded four colleagues

Russian forces have killed a foreign humanitarian deminer in Kherson Oblast. Shelling on the village of Novopetrivka killed a 24-year-old demining specialist working for Norwegian People's Aid and wounded four of his colleagues, head of Kherson Oblast Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

The strike hit people whose job is to undo Russia's damage. Ukraine fields about 3,000 deminers against some 180,000 square kilometers of contaminated land, Euromaidan Press found this week, and Russian attacks keep thinning their ranks even as Russian forces lay new mines nightly.

Kherson Oblast, partly liberated from Russian occupation in 2022, stays heavily mined and under regular fire from across the Dnipro.

Shelling hits Vysokopilska community

Russian troops shelled Novopetrivka in Vysokopilska community, Prokudin said. The 24-year-old was killed, and four other Norwegian People's Aid workers were hospitalized, two of them in serious condition as medics fought to save their lives.

The area was retaken from Russian forces in 2022 and remains littered with mines and unexploded ordnance, the kind of contamination the clearance teams had come to remove.

Strikes target deminers repeatedly

Russian forces have hit humanitarian deminers before. In September 2025, a Russian missile killed two workers and wounded five from a Danish Refugee Council clearance team near Chernihiv, the city's military administration said.

Ukraine's human rights commissioner called the strike a cynical crime against people carrying out humanitarian work, and the team's employer described it as a serious violation of international humanitarian law. Clearance crews make liberated land safe for residents to return, and mine clearance in Ukraine is already a job measured in decades.

Attacks hit aid operations

Russia has repeatedly struck humanitarian operations across Ukraine. In May, a precision Iskander missile damaged a UN World Food Program warehouse in Dnipro, the agency said, cutting into food meant for about 130,000 people.

The agency reported more than 84 incidents affecting its warehouses, distribution points, and transport across Ukraine over the previous 18 months, and Kyiv has urged the UN to press Russia to halt the attacks.