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After the fighting, their work begins: in the liberated areas of eastern Ukraine, explosives experts have begun searching the formerly occupied villages for mines.
These videos show members of a demining squad in the garden of a residential building.
With an improvised device made of two sticks and a cut plastic bottle, the soldiers try to lift the booby trap without shaking it and then detonate it in a controlled manner.
The garden is located in the village of Udy, a good 50 kilometers from the Russian border.
The village was recaptured by the Ukrainian army during the recent offensive - the Russian troops are said to have mined the village as they retreated.
Yaroslav Kostin, Head of Police Demining
»During our work here in Udy in the Kharkiv region, we found Russian positions.
There we found what you see here: we found anti-tank mines and anti-personnel mines, which are prohibited by international convention.
Our unit found and cleared these mines."
The use of anti-personnel mines is internationally banned.
To date, 164 countries have signed the so-called Ottawa Convention.
The convention prohibits the use, stockpiling and manufacture of anti-personnel mines.
Members include all EU countries and Ukraine.
Russia has not joined the agreement.
Lars Winkelsdorf, weapons expert
»Of course it would be a war crime if such mines were laid in civilian or medical facilities.
If such mines are set up in religious centers – well, of course that comes on top.«
An additional problem for the deminers: Industrially produced mines are relatively easy to see and recognize, and they are sometimes noted on maps.
Things are much more complicated with improvised booby traps, which are often overlooked at first glance.
This makes evacuation difficult and every everyday action life-threatening.
Lars Winkelsdorf, Weapons Expert
»The main problem that strikes me in the reporting in videos on site is the incredibly high number and the bestial creativity in dealing with hidden charges, i.e. with booby traps.
There are some booby traps that have been hidden in kitchen cupboards in simple jars.
There are such booby traps that have been hidden on toilets, hidden under cots.
Creativity is almost unlimited here.«
There are few verified video recordings of these booby traps.
These Twitter images are said to show live grenade detonators left in homes by Russian soldiers when they pulled out of the Kyiv region.
Improvised booby traps were also found in the Ukrainian village of Udy.
The shots taken by the clearing squad also show so-called butterfly mines.
Small plastic mines that are dropped in large numbers from the air.
They're nondescript, don't look like a mine, and explode if you touch them.
People in Ukraine learn to recognize these different mines through social networks, for example.
However, a risk remains.
Lars Winkelsdorf, Weapons Expert
»It ranges from official information warning of this to word of mouth propaganda, completely separate from local online media, where the population warns each other about certain things.
But you really have to say that the creativity of the deployed soldiers is so high that basically it is hardly possible to be able to warn of such explosive traps.«
Experiences from the areas north of Kyiv that were liberated months ago show how complex it can be to secure those places that were once occupied by Russian soldiers.
To date, the areas have not been completely demined.
In the now liberated villages of eastern Ukraine, the arduous and time-consuming work is just beginning.
Lars Winkelsdorf, Weapons Expert
»You will always have a high percentage of mines that cannot be cleared.
Once because these mines are not found.
On the other hand, because the mines have been arranged and laid in such a way that they should not be found, so that they can pose a long-term threat to advancing troops.
We're actually talking about a range of months to years in which these mines could pose a threat to advancing troops, but also to civilians."
The consequences of the war will be felt in Ukraine for a very long time.
During her last visit, Annalena Baerbock announced that she would continue to expand her support for civilian demining.
However, it will be some time before this aid arrives in the still fiercely contested east of the country.