Three Ukrainian emergency services workers demining parts of the Kherson region have been killed in an explosion.

“All three selflessly served in the emergency and rescue squad of the Special Purpose Unit of the State Department of Ukraine in Zhytomyr region and performed the task of demining territories liberated from the enemy in the Kherson region,” the Zhytomyr emergency service said on its Facebook page.

The Zhytomyr region is west of Kyiv, in northern Ukraine.

Russia, which invaded Ukraine 10 months ago, controls most but not all of Kherson region.

By mid-November, Ukrainian forces retook Kherson City – the region’s administrative centre – and several settlements in the region.

Explosive experts have worked there since, with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky saying Russian forces had heavily mined buildings and objects.

They have also done so in many other areas that Ukraine has retaken.

Thousands of mines

The US State Department estimated in early December that some 160,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian land needed to be checked for explosives hazards – an area almost half the size of Germany’s land area.

“We expect this to be one of the largest landmine and unexploded ordinance challenges since World War II,” the department said in a briefing posted on its website.

On Saturday, Ukrainian authorities said a Russian strike had killed at least 10 people in Kherson City.

Moscow blamed Ukrainian forces for the attack.

-AAP