Photos: Farming in Ukraine’s War Zone

A person walks in a farm field, carrying a long gun and a hand-held electronic device, watching for drones, as a farm worker drives a tractor in the background.

Ivan Antypenko / Suspilne Ukraine / Global Images Ukraine / Getty

Ukrainian farmer Oleksandr Hordiienko carries an anti-drone gun while holding “Chuyka,” a Ukrainian drone detector that helps spot Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), while his employees work on a tractor in a field in the Kherson region, Ukraine, on July 29, 2025.

A long line of concrete pyramid-shaped antitank defenses sit beside concertina wire in a sunflower field.

Ivan Antypenko / Suspilne Ukraine / Global Images Ukraine / Getty

Anti-tank fortifications, also known as “dragon’s teeth,” stand in a sunflower field on July 24, 2025, seen in the Kherson region.

A soldier kneels in a farm field, as smoke rises from a distant explosion.

Ivan Samoilov / Frontliner / Getty

Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) inspectors of the National Police examine and remotely detonate the warhead of a downed Geran 2 attack drone, after clearing dry vegetation on a farmer’s field on September 22, 2025, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Police warn that civilians who attempt to recover explosive fragments risk death: “There have been fatal cases, including children,” said EOD specialist Oleksii Poliakov.

Bright orange flames surround burning stalks of wheat.

Evgeniy Maloletka / AP

A wheat field burns after Russian shelling a few kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Kharkiv region on July 29, 2022.

A combine harvester sits, stopped, near the remains of a military rocket, embedded in the ground in a sunflower field.

Pierre Crom / Getty

Viktor, an agricultural worker, stops a combine harvester near the remains of a rocket on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on September 7, 2023.

A farmer stands near a barn, holding up a large wing of a downed Russian drone.

Efrem Lukatsky / AP

Victor Tsvik, an owner of a private farm, shows a fragment of a Russian drone that fell in his field in the Kyiv region, Ukraine, on August 3, 2025.

Two soldiers prepare a fixed-wing drone for a launch, beside a farm field with a tractor operating in the background.

Andriy Andriyenko / AP

Soldiers of Ukraine’s National Guard 15th Brigade launch a reconnaissance drone from a wheat field to determine Russian positions, as a farmer harvests in the background, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, on July 29, 2024.

Sergei Supinsky / AFP / Getty

The shadow of a helicopter is seen on a field of sunflowers in the Kyiv region on July 14, 2022.

Dozens of pigs gather in a field beside a damaged farm building.

Viktoriia Yakymenko / Suspilne Ukraine / Global Images Ukraine / Getty

Surviving pigs are seen in front of a farm building hit by a Russian drone strike on October 3, 2025, in the Kharkiv region. A massive strike by Russian drones on the night of October 3 hit a farm in the Nova Vodolaha settlement, destroying farm buildings and killing most of its 15,000 pigs.

A rusted wreck of a vehicle sits beside a dirt road, passing through a stand of shattered trees.

Wojciech Grzedzinski / Anadolu Agency / Getty

A view of a destroyed farm in Dovhenke village in the Kharkiv region, seen on June 22, 2023

Sunflowers ina field, draped with fiber-optic cables

Alex Babenko / AP

Sunflowers draped with fiber-optic cables left behind by passing drones are seen near Sloviansk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on September 11, 2025.

A worker leads a horse into a truck on a farm.

Darya Nazarova / AFP / Getty

A worker leads a horse into a truck during the evacuation of horses from a stud farm to a safe place to protect them from possible air attacks, near Novomykolaivka, Zaporizhzhia region, on December 17, 2025.

An aerial view of farm vehicles in a field near a fresh crater left by a Russian rocket.

Efrem Lukatsky / AP

A farmer works to harvest a field 10 kilometers from the front line, maneuvering around a crater left by a Russian rocket, in the xDnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on July 4, 2022.

Soldiers fire a large anti-aircraft gun from the back of a truck in a sunflower field, at night, the muzzle flash illuminating the sunflowers.

Roman Pilipey / AFP / Getty

Ukrainian service members of the 59th brigade’s mobile-air-defense unit fire a Soviet-made ZU-23 anti-aircraft twin-barrel auto-cannon toward a Russian drone, during an air attack near Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region, on July 19, 2025.

Fragments of Russian missiles and weapons lie piled on a field as a tractor passes by in the background.

Andrii Marienko / AP

Fragments of Russian missiles and weapons lie on a field as farm work continues in the background, near the front line in the Kharkiv region, on May 22, 2026.

A farmer holds up several wrecked small drones.

Ivan Antypenko / Suspilne Ukraine / Global Images Ukraine / Getty

Ukrainian farmer Serhii Mykhaltsov shows Russian first-person-view drones that fell in a field thanks to electronic-warfare systems that Ukrainian farmers used on July 29, 2025, in the Kherson region.

Six people wearing protective gear carry metal detectors while walking through a farm field, near a sign with a skull-and-crossbones warning about demining activity.

Sergei Supinsky / AFP / Getty

De-miners with the humanitarian organization HALO Trust work to clear farm land of explosives near the village of Yevgenivka, in the Mykolaiv region, Ukraine on April 9, 2023.

A person wearing protective gear and a face mask removes potential explosive material from a hole in a farm field.

Andrii Marienko / AP

A sapper removes potential explosive items from an agricultural field in Balakliia, Kharkiv region, on April 30, 2026.

A small reconnaissance drone flies above a field covered by discarded fiber-optic drone fibers.

Francisco Richart / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty

A Ukrainian reconnaissance drone flies above a field covered by discarded fiber-optic drone fibers on the Sumy front on January 28, 2026.

A person hangs laundry on a line attached to a pole fashioned from a fragment of a Russian rocket.

Efrem Lukatsky / AP

Mykola Kravchenko hangs laundry on a line attached to a fragment of a Russian rocket in the village of Maydanivka, Kyiv region, on May 30, 2024. The rocket fell on Kravchenko’s farm at the beginning of the war, in 2022.

An aerial view of an unmanned vehicle crossing a farm field, clearing mines

Pierre Crom / Getty

De-mining teams from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service clear an agricultural field using a remote-controlled GCS-200 mine-clearing vehicle on September 27, 2024, in Svyatohirsk, Ukraine.

Workers use a sling to lift and remove a large unexploded bomb from a farm field.

Latin America News Agency / Reuters

An unexploded bomb is removed from an agricultural field near Kupyansk, Ukraine, on August 11, 2025.

A man holds a young goat, standing near other goats beside a brick building.

Dmytro Smolienko / Ukrinform / Future Publishing / Getty

Viktor Zinchenko takes care of a herd of 50 goats in Orikhiv, a city in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine, close to the front line.

A fiery explosion, seen beside a farm field

Pierre Crom / Getty

Ukrainian anti-drone units downed a Russian-launched Shahed UAV, which crashed in an agricultural field on August 10, 2025, in the Donetsk region.

Ukrinform / NurPhoto / Getty

A man walks among the ruins of a hangar granary that was destroyed by Russian shelling at one of the agricultural enterprises near Orikhiv in the Polohy district, Zaporizhzhia region, on July 8, 2025.