More than 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers lost their legs in the war

   On Wednesday, Newsweek newspaper quoted well-informed sources as saying that more than 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers lost their legs during the war in their country due to landmines planted by the Russian army.

Newsweek magazine said on Wednesday that more than 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers lost their legs during the war in their country due to landmines planted by the Russian army.

The magazine indicated that the Ukrainian army deals sensitively with data related to its wounded in the war. Still, it quoted informed sources as saying that the number of soldiers who are now waiting for the installation of an artificial leg or two is more than ten thousand.

The overwhelming majority of them lost their lower limbs as a result of stepping on anti-personnel landmines.

Oleksandr Rabstov, director of Good Deeds, a charity that helps Ukrainian servicemen who have lost limbs, said the cost per soldier was more than $20,000, including transportation, hospitality, medical expenses, and incidentals.

Thousands more will lose their limbs before the war ends

Rabstov added that more than half of the soldiers who were fitted with prostheses through his New York-based organization have returned to military service, and a number of them have resumed fighting on the front lines.

A Human Rights Watch report last Thursday predicted that thousands more Ukrainian soldiers would lose their limbs before the war ends.

The report recommended that the parties to the conflict in Ukraine ensure that anti-personnel landmines are not used and that their stockpiles are destroyed.

The Russian army had anticipated the counter-attack launched by the Ukrainian forces last month by laying vast numbers of anti-personnel mines along a front that extends about 1,000 kilometers, starting from the banks of the Dnieper River in central Ukraine and along Zaporizhia and the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, all the way to the Russian border in the east.

Many of the mines laid along the river were washed away by the flood caused by the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam on June 6.