This Ukrainian soldier lost a leg to a landmine. Now he’s back on the front line

CNN:

A group of Ukrainian soldiers moves swiftly through a front-line training ground, overcoming obstacles and firing at distant targets. They are fine-tuning their battle skills here as Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces rages just few miles to the south.

One fighter, Danilo, who is only being identified by his first name for security reasons, stands out. He is fast and accurate, but his movements are different.

Another glance reveals the reason for his slight limp – he has a prosthetic limb where his lower right leg used to be.

“I’m still getting in the shape I used to be,” Danilo told CNN with a smirk. “There is still a lot of work ahead… And even more to the perfect shape.”

Danilo lost his lower right leg early in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. He and his unit were on a mission when they came under fire and he stepped on a landmine.

His maiming, and similar injuries to many others, both soldiers and civilians, are just one of the many consequences of Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Moscow’s forces have littered an estimated 170,000 square kilometers (65,637 square miles) of the Ukrainian countryside with landmines – an area the size of Florida – a large portion of them along the southern front, in a bid to halt Kyiv’s counteroffensive. International think tank GLOBSEC found Ukraine to be the most mined country in the world in a report published in April.