For Oleksandr Hordiyenko, a farmer in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, this spring is shaping up badly: Frost during an April cold snap damaged half the crops he had already sown, and rains that fell across much of the country steered clear of his land.

Then there's another kind of problem.

"Last week a tractor blew up -- it hit a mine," Hordiyenko toldRFE/RL's News of Azov. "That field has been cultivated since last year, but still something happened, something was stirred up."

Farmers across Ukraine face some of the same risk factors that can make growing crops a gamble worldwide, such as fickle weather, fluctuating prices, and shifting state regulations.

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Particularly in regions near the front, they also have to deal with the daily dangers posed by Russia's war against Ukraine.

Nobody died in the tractor blast, Hordiyenko said, but "there's another problem -- drones fly in, people get killed."

'Risks End Badly'

Hordiyenko's farm is in the Beryslav district on the Ukrainian-held right bank of the Dnieper River, which essentially forms the front line in the Kherson region as it flows southwest to the Black Sea. Like the city of Kherson, Beryslav and the surrounding district were occupied by Russian forces near the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 but wereliberatedin a Ukrainian counteroffensive that autumn.

Russian forces on the Dnieper's left bank continue to target Ukrainians across the river, often using drones that drop deadly mines and grenades.