Photo: Chris Garrett (Courtesy Image)
Photographs of Russian artillery and rockets embedded in trees capture the intensity of fighting in Ukraine.
British explosives expert Chris Garrett laughs awkwardly when asked how he removed the artillery shell seen in the photo below.
The professional tree surgeon says after putting on his body armor and helmet, he sawed the base of the tree with a chainsaw, then: “I just jumped in [an abandoned trench] and let the tree come down.”
Thankfully, he says, the fuze of the shell had been damaged and did not detonate when the tree slammed to earth. The Briton jokes that the technique was probably not up “to international mine-action standards,” but, “The job was done and we all went home.”
The embedded artillery round is one of several the Isle of Man native has documented on his Instagram account of shells and rockets that have been blasted into trees with such force they remain wedged weeks after invading Russian forces abandoned their positions around Kyiv.
Garrett, who relies on donations for his explosives ordnance disposal (EOD) work in Ukraine, says while he is unsure about the mangled grad rocket in the photo above, in most cases the shells are not in fact incoming rounds fired from a weapon.
In the photo above of a shell embedded base-first into a tree, the EOD expert says, “If that was an incoming round, it would have gone straight through that tree, it would have smashed it in half.”
In fact, the deadly “fruit” the volunteer has documented in the forests around Kyiv is the result of secondary explosions, mostly of Russian vehicles carrying ammunition.
“What’s happened is trucks have ended up catching fire or being hit [by Ukrainian artillery] directly,” Garret says. In a process known as sympathetic detonation, the shock wave of one shell exploding from either heat or impact has enough force to “set off the round next to it and so on,” which sends debris flying in all directions.
As well as rockets and artillery shells, Garrett has also filmed scores of tiny metal darts called flechettes embedded in trees at one abandoned Russian position. The nail-sized projectiles are used in some tank rounds to kill and maim enemy troops.
After a flechette shell is fired, it pops open to unleash hundreds of darts known for the fearsome buzz they make as they pass, giving the anti-personnel shells the nickname “beehive rounds.”
The danger of the work Garrett and Ukrainian EOD teams are involved in was highlighted earlier this month. While working in forests near Kyiv, Garret says they heard “a blast in the woods and a scream.” Although the team tried to investigate the explosion, they were unable to locate the mystery blast.
With the former battlefields around Kyiv still littered with unexploded ordnance, Garrett says, “It’s too dangerous now to just wander around searching.”
