Starting in April 2022 and over the following months, immediately after the liberation of the Irpin community—when the air still smelled of smoke and the ground hid dozens of dangerous “surprises”—three friends, now comrades-in-arms, — Kot, Ded and the Coach — joined the work of restoring safety in the city. Their efforts helped speed up the restoration of infrastructure and allowed residents to return home.

They organised themselves within the DFTG of the Irpin community and the municipal enterprise “Irpin Municipal Guard” to carry out urgent clearance operations in places where a sapper had not yet set foot. Locals turned to them: someone found a shell in their yard, someone discovered a mine by a fence, someone uncovered fragments of ordnance in their home.

At the beginning they received up to 30 calls a day, and they personally responded to every request:

• travelled to the address;

• surveyed the area;

• identified the type of explosive device;

• carefully removed it and handed it over to the State Emergency Service (DSNS).

Over time they processed roughly a thousand requests.

Hundreds of places where it became safe again to walk, to plant, to live.

Their work did not make loud headlines or appear on camera—only scorched ruins, broken glass underfoot and the danger that might be hiding in a cupboard or a washing machine. And the never-ending stench of rotting food that rose from abandoned homes where, after evacuation, food had spoiled in powerless fridges.

Later, when the immediate phase ended, the comrades joined Safe Land — a humanitarian demining operator — where they continued their work at a professional level. But back in 2022 they were simply doing what needed to be done so that people could live at home again without fear.

Humanitarian demining has become one of the core directions of the Unity HUB charitable foundation.

Now the team, together with professional sappers, partners and international organisations, work systematically to return safety to Ukrainian land—metre by metre, community by community.

What began as the initiative of three comrades in the smoke after the fighting has grown into a full-scale project to restore life where, until yesterday, war raged.