ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION, Ukraine, Aug 3 (Reuters) - When they found the bodies of Russian troops at an abandoned position, something about the corpses looked wrong.

The kitten is a folding steel hook that sappers use to dislodge booby traps, nicknamed for its retractable tongs that spring out like cat's claws.

Occupying Russian troops have sown landmines and booby traps across hundreds of miles of Ukraine's front, a tactic that Kyiv's commanders describe as the primary reason why their long-awaited summer counteroffensive has slowed to a crawl.

For mine-clearers like Volodymyr, every day brings deadly risk, trying to make the ground safe, first for their fellow soldiers to advance, and eventually for civilians to go home.

Landmines inflicted a colossal toll in the first month of the counteroffensive launched in June, said Oleksandr, an anaesthesiologist with the 128 Brigade who treats battlefield wounds at a front-line field hospital.

In addition to the "kitten" hooks, Volodymyr's unit has been sent "spider boots", which lift each foot off the ground on four metal legs, so any blast they set off will not be triggered directly under a sapper's body.

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