Retreating Russian troops have left Ukrainian cities riddled with booby traps, putting civilian lives at risk.
Soldiers rigged hand grenades to washing machines and buried explosives deep into roads.
Road signs warning people of mines ahead directed them down another street, which in fact was laden with the devices.
One police station in Kherson containing a former torture chamber cannot be entered by investigators as it is filled with hidden explosives.
A month after Russian forces fled, Ukrainian soldiers are still struggling to get demining teams to make large areas safe as they are trip-wired with bombs.
Anti-explosives experts have had to clear as much as 115 miles worth of road in the region, despite the near-constant Russian shelling from afar.
The centre of Kherson has been hit so regularly locals try not to queue after a line of people entering a bank was recently hit by artillery.
Now they gather at smaller and secretive distribution points.
A Ukrainian source said: “Leaving these devices all over towns piles on pressure on civilians who can never be off their guard against explosions.
“It is designed to kill or maim but also the knowledge of booby traps means nobody feels safe despite the sense of victory having forced Russia out.
“And the grinding repetition of artillery shells on the towns, whilst it could have been predicted, leaves little sense of the city having been freed.”
Just 60,000 people are left struggling to survive in Kherson.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has revealed more than 50% of the country’s energy infrastructure has been destroyed by Russian “missile terror” air strikes.
In the past 24 hours there have been 11 air strikes, two missile strikes and 60 shells fired at Ukrainian targets, according to the military chiefs.
But Kyiv’s troops are still recording victories on the battlefield, having hit 17 Russian strongholds, including two ammo dumps just in one day. Ukraine claims 94,760 Russian troops have died so far in the war and almost 3,000 of its tanks have been destroyed.
And Kyiv reports its troops have fought back at least 11 major assaults by Moscow in the contested Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the past day alone.
Ukraine is believed to be gearing up for another counter-offensive against Russian forces as the winter freeze gets well underway, with firmer ground making it easier for transportation of troops and weapons.
