A Russian strike killed two Norwegian People's Aid deminers and wounded four others in Kherson Oblast on 24 June, the group said. The team was clearing mines from Ukrainian farmland when the strike hit. Ukrainian prosecutors opened a war-crimes investigation.
Russia has turned Ukraine into the world's most mined country, contaminating tens of thousands of square kilometers of farmland that only a few thousand clearance workers can slowly make safe—work measured in decades, not years.
A strike at midday on a demining team
The strike hit at about 12:50 p.m. near the village of Novopetrivka, in the Vysokopillia community, Norwegian People's Aid said. One worker was killed at the scene, and a colleague taken to hospital later died of wounds. Four others were wounded, two in serious condition as doctors fought to save their lives.
The dead and wounded were all Ukrainian nationals, the group said. A 24-year-old demining specialist was among those killed, the head of Kherson Oblast Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, reported. The team had been clearing land of mines and unexploded ordnance, a basic condition for farmers to return to their fields and for displaced people to come home.
"Military authorities in Kherson report through Ukrainian media that Norwegian People's Aid was struck by a Russian Iskander‑M missile. The organization is still working to verify this information and the exact circumstances surrounding the attack," the organization wrote in its press release.
24-year-old foreign deminer came to clear Russia’s mines in Kherson. Russian shelling killed him and wounded four colleagues
A war-crimes case
Viktoriya Fedotova, head of the Ukrainian NGO Martin-Club and a partner of the demining team, wrote that the workers had taken no part in combat. They were clearing Ukrainian soil so civilians could be safe, she said, and her own team had trained alongside the dead only recently. Attacking those who save lives and make land safe is a gross violation of international humanitarian law, she added.
A usual day of Russian strikes across the oblast
Across Kherson Oblast over the preceding 24 hours, Russian drones and artillery hit Kherson city and dozens of settlements, the regional administration reported. The strikes killed two people while wounding 16.
By late afternoon on 24 June, prosecutors had logged one civilian killed and 11 wounded across the oblast from artillery, mortars, drones, and a ballistic strike. A drone hit a civilian fuel station around 5 p.m., seriously wounding two people.
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The strikes continued the next morning.
- On 25 June, prosecutors opened a fresh war-crimes case over drone attacks on a city hospital and a utility worker.
- Around 8 a.m., a drone strike on the Kherson hospital wounded five of its medical and technical staff.
- At 9:10 a.m., a drone wounded a 63-year-old utility worker in the Korabelnyi district, and just before 11 a.m. another strike hurt a 61-year-old man in the same district.
- A 62-year-old woman was hospitalized with blast and head injuries from a Shahed strike in the Central district the day before, and a 16-year-old boy needed care for a blast injury from another drone strike there.
- A 60-year-old woman and a man sought help after a drone hit their car between Bilozerka and Pryozerne.
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A pattern of strikes on those who help
UN investigators have previously ruled Russia's deliberate drone hunting of Kherson's civilians and rescuers a crime against humanity, tracing the campaign up the chain of command. 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, in northern Ukraine.
