Australian artist and filmmaker George Gittoes' has been schooled in the apparent metamorphosis of Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
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His most recent dispatch from the front line includes details of detecting potentially killer tripwires, boobytraps and landmines in popular recreation spaces.
Gittoes travelled from Werri Beach on NSW's south coast to Eastern Europe with his wife Hellen Rose last month, to document the impact of war on everyday citizens. He now believes sending Australian mine clearance experts to Ukraine would be a much-needed humanitarian act.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said between 2500 to 3000 Ukrainian troops have died so far in the war and another 10,000 have been injured.
Civilian casualties are more difficult to determine.
Gittoes spent hours with police, farmers and volunteers in Lukyanivka, a historical neighborhood in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, finding landmines and booby traps.
"In the ploughed field... 15 farmers has fanned out, each walking in step with one another, and holding a handful of sticks that had red and white strips of plastic attached to their ends," he explained.
"When they would find a mine or unexploded bomb, they would plant a stick. The fields must be cleared before they can plant their spring crop of wheat."
But in revealing how they combed a public space by a river for concealed dangers, Gittoes explained how the behaviour of Russian soldiers has changed.
"When the Russians first arrived in the village they were starving and thirsty. They came to the farmhouses asking for eggs and water
"Then they came back and took underwear and clothes - they were filthy dirty and their clothes were vile," he said.
"Then they came back and took everything of value, including things like Nike shoes. For fun they would roll their tanks over the farmer's cars, crushing them. In the process they got to know the farmers and their families well, but not in a friendly way."
"Then they came back and took everything of value, including things like Nike shoes. For fun they would roll their tanks over the farmer's cars, crushing them. In the process they got to know the farmers and their families well, but not in a friendly way."
Giittoes admits to initially giving some of the Russian soldiers the benefit of the doubt, imagining they would come from small farming communities like the ones the invaded.
"I imagined they would have felt some empathy, but Sasha denied this, and said that everything they did was at the point of a gun.
"Sasha said, however, they felt lucky, that these soldiers were regular Russian Army - it could have been a lot worse if they were mercenaries. Unlike Bucha , Irpin and Boradyanka there have been no mass killings or torture."
Then Sasha repeated what I have heard over and over again in Ukraine - that the Russians are jealous of what the Ukrainians have. That the Russians homes are much poorer with no indoor toilets or running water and few consumer possessions.
That's not to say all was above board.
"This small farming community has a recreation area next to the nearby river, with picnic tables, a barbecue set-up, and a sports field for children and footballers.
"They set this up with dozens of booby traps. The tripwires were about four-feet off the ground so animals could go under them but most children would set them off. Usually attached to grenades but sometimes to repurposed RPGs (rocket-propelled grenade).
The track down to there was planted with anti-personnel mines and the playing fields were covered in the same.
The tripwires were between trees in the forest."
The fine, rusted nature of the tripwires is almost invisible against the dry grasses in the background.
"I would have certainly been fooled by it if it had not been for the sharp eyes of the local cops and farmers," Gittoes said.
"When the Russians were leaving they took some village women down a road and made them scream. The men of the village came to help them in a van but it was a trap and they went over an anti-tank mine, killing one and seriously wounding the other three."
In Borodianka, about 80km out of the capital, the devastation is substantial. A fat stuffed bear, caught Gittoes' eye.
"It sat above a pile of rubble on the only remaining floor of a destroyed building, between two gutted apartment towers. This soft bear wears a smirk. A slit has been cut between its legs and a piece of masonry placed to cover it. At the bear's foot there is the rotting skeleton of a cat," Gittoes said.
"The question is, who elevated this stuffed bear up onto a throne of rubble? The Russians to symbolise their victory or Ukraine soldiers to ridicule them?"
