Ukraine is the most mined country in the world: it will take hundreds of years to clear mines
The war made Ukraine the most heavily mined country in the world. Complete demining will take tens (and perhaps even hundreds) of years, reports Meduza.
Photo: IStock
Almost a third of Ukrainian territories are covered in tripwires and mines, making the country the most heavily mined in the world. Landmines are inexpensive but very dangerous weapons that can be planted almost anywhere. And it is mines that are named among the reasons for the slowdown in the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At the same time, they suffer from mines - they die, they are injured - including civilians. Mines are one of the most brutal weapons of war.
Every eighth person who was blown up is a child
In the spring of 2022, intense fighting took place in the village of Blagodatnoye, Nikolaev region. Local resident Dmitry Eliseenko recalls that he was “in the wildest shock”: “I couldn’t believe that my friends were dying, that neighbors’ houses were burning and that mine could be next.”
Dmitry is 26 years old, and he talks about what he had to go through in a quiet, calm voice. “I was in such a state that I can’t even explain, it was so terrible. It's like you're going to lose consciousness. You’re slowed down, you feel like the picture around you is black and white,” says the man.
To avoid being shelled, locals hid in basements, where they spent XNUMX hours a day: “It’s very difficult to live in a basement, especially since we weren’t prepared; no one installed any potbelly stoves or stoves there. Just a damp basement. Therefore, one day we went out to make tea over a fire in a saucepan - and the arrival happened very close. Everything fell, everything was covered in soot. The earth was flying. We were stunned, but we survived.”
A week later, Dmitry with his mother and other villagers - without an evacuation corridor, with white flags and under the roar of battle - walked 14 kilometers. However, Dmitry returned to Blagodatnoye more than once to help the animals abandoned there. On one of these trips, relatives from a neighboring village asked a man to replace a local tractor driver in order to cultivate the field. That day—March 21—changed his life forever.
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In 2023, farmers have traveled through this field more than once. And Dmitry himself then managed to spend many hours on it. But when he once again drove onto a familiar road, an explosion occurred. “It was powerful - it hit the whole body - and very hot. And then suddenly the next picture: I’m crawling out of the tractor. I take the first deep breath or exhale, as if returning to life. I got up and didn’t understand that I was standing. The first thing I did was look behind me. I was afraid to see myself lying down: it seemed to me that this is how people die. I turned around, there was no one - I just exhaled. Then I think: “Wait, these are not all the problems. Are my limbs still in place? I look at my feet: “Yes! God bless! What about your hands? Well, everything can’t be perfect... Look, don’t look...” I stretch out two hands in front of me, palms up. There are hands. I think: “Great!” And then blood begins to not just drip onto your palms, but blood clots, whole pieces, fall.”
Realizing that there was something wrong with his head, Dmitry found his phone in his pocket and turned on the front camera. And I saw myself like this: my whole face was covered in blood flowing from my eyes and mouth. His eyes felt like they were clogged with dry cutting mud. Then the man did not yet understand that he could not see with his left eye.
To call for help, he walked towards the highway - it was very difficult and painful to walk. On the way, Dmitry wanted to look at himself through the camera again and accidentally turned on record, so he still has a video to remember that moment. Next was the road to the Nikolaev hospital and a long treatment, which is still ongoing.
Mine explosions rank third among the causes of death and injury to civilians in Ukraine during a full-scale war. According to UN statistics, which due to the difficulties of collection and verification are considered underestimated, from February 22, 2022 to the end of June 2023, almost 300 Ukrainian civilians were killed by mines and other explosive elements, and more than 600 were injured. Prime Minister Denis Shmygal stated that in March 2023 alone, mines killed 226 people. And every eighth person who was blown up is a child.
Death and mayhem
On March 5, 2022, 11-year-old Danilo and his 14-year-old brother Bogdan burned alive in a car while evacuating from the Chernihiv region due to a mine explosion. Their mother Oksana Boltushkina was thrown out of the car - she also died. Three weeks later, 45-year-old Doctor of Law, former director of the Institute of Legislation in Ukraine, Ilona Kurovska, and a 24-year-old volunteer were blown up and died when they were transporting aid to the then-occupied Buchansky district. And on the last day of March, 68-year-old teacher Olena Glushchenko stepped on a mine while walking for humanitarian aid in Mariupol.
“Dad ran up to mom. Her legs were gone... Mom asked her father to sit her down. He listened. Then she said that she was very hot. Dad took off her outerwear. She asked for a drink, he gave her water. She took one sip, but couldn't take the second. Daddy had been kissing her and talking to her for the last few minutes. Mom died in his arms,” said their daughter Oksana.
Survivors of mines and explosive devices often suffer severe injuries and injuries. “All combat injuries are terrible, but those caused by an anti-personnel mine are particularly severe. The explosion of a high-explosive anti-personnel mine buried in the ground tears off one or both legs of the victim, while dirt, grass, small stones, metal, fragments of the mine's plastic body, pieces of shoes and crushed bone enter the muscles and lower part of the body. Thus, in addition to the traumatic amputation of the limb, there is a serious risk of secondary infection,” writes the International Committee of the Red Cross about the importance of banning such mines.
According to Dmitry, after the incident with him in his native Blagodatny, at least three more died from mines, and one tractor driver was wounded.
Eliseenko himself received a complex injury to his left eye. “The doctor who did the ultrasound asked: “What kind of wound do you have that’s so interesting?” It was literally a grain of sand that tore your eye open, but it had enormous kinetic force.” That is, a small mass, but a very large impact. A grain of sand damaged the front part of the eye and made a rose out of it. If instead there had been a small piece of glass or metal, it would most likely have killed me.”
The tractor in which Dmitry was riding was thrown on its side by the explosion, and the man fell out of his chair. Apparently, this saved his life: a large fragment of a mine was stuck in the seat exactly where Dmitry was sitting. He still cannot see in his left eye and continues treatment in the hope of one day regaining his sight.
Chaos and cruelty. How the Russian military is mining Ukraine
Landmines are inexpensive but very dangerous weapons. They can be installed almost anywhere to damage the enemy or slow down their movement by destroying bridges, supply lines and power lines.
To disable equipment, they place anti-tank (or anti-vehicle) mines. For this purpose, Russia mainly uses the Soviet TM-62, which detonates only with a pressing force of more than 100 kilograms. However, you can hide a booby trap under it - and it will go off if a person picks up the mine. For comparison: the American-made M21 anti-tank mine (the US supplies them to Ukraine) cannot be used to install such traps. Thus, M21 does not allow violating the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines - designed specifically to kill and maim people.
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The Ottawa Treaty of 1997 was signed by 164 states, including Ukraine and Belarus, while Russia, the USA, China and India did not join it. States Parties pledged never to use, develop, produce or transfer anti-personnel mines. And also - destroy all their reserves. Ukraine began recycling at the end of 2006, when there were more than six million mines. By 2021, only half remained in Ukrainian warehouses, and most of them were Soviet anti-personnel high-explosive mines, known as “Petal” or “Butterfly Mine.”
Anti-personnel mines were banned because they “do not differentiate” between military and civilians, which is why they cause massive deaths and suffering among civilians - especially children. “The purpose of an anti-personnel mine is not to kill a person, but to maim. For example, a military man’s foot was torn off - they won’t abandon him. He screams, asks for help. It takes two people to save him. They will get tired of dragging it, others will replace them - that’s already four people.
Therefore, an anti-personnel mine is needed to disable an entire unit,” explains Konstantin Efremov, a Russian sapper who took part in the invasion of Ukraine, but then refused to fight and fled Russia, in a conversation.
Efremov confirms that the Russian military in Ukraine is actively using anti-personnel mines.
Petal anti-personnel mines are stored in a molded plastic case, so they are not afraid of either heat or moisture - and they are always ready to explode. “How many years have passed since the Chechen war, and the mines there are still in combat condition. The same thing will happen in Ukraine: they will cause a lot of problems,” adds Efremov, who before the outbreak of a full-scale war served in Chechnya, where he was engaged in mine clearance for four years.
Two competent sappers are capable of destroying an entire column: both equipment and all personnel, as another former Russian military man who participated in the invasion of Ukraine says. Like Efremov, he refused to fight a few months after being sent to the front (but had not yet managed to leave Russia, so he asked for anonymity).
“It’s good that at the beginning of a full-scale war there was so much corruption and other absurdities in the Russian armed forces that, as a result, the Russian army is fighting poorly,” says Efremov. “For example, a month before the start of the war, I was transferred from a mine clearance platoon to a rifle battalion. It’s like turning a jeweler into a blacksmith or a plowman.”
The anti-tank mines that Efremov laid in Ukraine, according to him, were removed by Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen that same night because the Russian soldiers at the post were drunk and were not monitoring the situation. The soldiers themselves, the man claims, sometimes died because they did not follow the basic rules for transporting mines and demining them.
But the irresponsible approach of the Russian military to mining poses a great danger, primarily for Ukraine. It is not known for certain how many mines Russia currently has, but four Russian military officers interviewed confidently state that the stockpiles are huge. In 1999, researchers from the international organization Landmine Monitor claimed that Russia could have stored 60-70 million anti-personnel mines, and only China had more - 110 million. In 2004, then-Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that Russia had 26,5 million anti-personnel mines and planned to destroy 2015% of them by 90. There is no evidence that this was actually done.
In addition, the Russian military appears to be violating mine-laying regulations. “They were crazy enough to mine several lines of defense: two, three, four. Because they were panicking: they didn’t know which mine would work and which wouldn’t. It depends on how they were stored: properly or not,” says Konstantin Efremov about the situation in the spring of 2022, when he himself was in Ukraine.
In theory, when placing mines, the military must fill out a “minefield form” - this is a map with the coordinates and types of mines installed. However, in practice, the Russian military placed mines randomly and did not fill out the forms.
“Today, some unit is stationed at a location, they are given the command to mine some area, and that’s it. We lined up, gave two mines in each hand and went to place them by eye. They will then be transferred to another location - no one will ever remember where and what area they mined. The same thing happened in Chechnya,” says Efremov.
Residents of the Kharkov region also talk about the same thing: during the retreat, Russian troops did not neutralize their mines, did not tell local residents about them, and did not leave maps of the mined areas. Efremov emphasizes that Russian military personnel did not even warn other units of the Russian Armed Forces about the mines (minefield forms are compiled first of all, so that later their own soldiers do not get blown up on them).
Other cruel and cunning mining methods of the Russian army are also mentioned in the Globsec report: “Russian troops are notorious for their ingenuity in setting booby traps and tripwires: they mine animals, human corpses, and also place double and even triple traps on roads, fields and in forests". This is confirmed by sappers who cleared mines in the Kyiv, Chernigov and Sumy regions. For example, they found grenades in a glass, in a washing machine, in a crib and in a closet under a doll.
The British Ministry of Defense intelligence cited the intensive use of anti-tank mines as the reason for the slowdown in the Ukrainian counter-offensive. This was confirmed both by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Ukrainian military themselves. “In some areas, the density of minefields indicates that Russia is likely to have deployed many more mines than its military doctrine envisaged,” the UK Ministry of Defense wrote in July 2023.
Moreover, during the Ukrainian counter-offensive, mines caused more damage to the Ukrainian Armed Forces than all Russian artillery. “Every meter is given in blood,” commented the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny, on the progress of the counteroffensive.
Demining Ukraine
Due to a full-scale war, Ukraine has become the most mined country in the world. According to estimates by the Globsec analytical center, almost a third of the country’s territory – 174 thousand square kilometers – needs to be carefully examined for the presence of mines and other explosives.
Kharkov and Kherson are the most heavily mined liberated regions in Ukraine. This is because they were under Russian occupation for a long time. At the same time, it is still impossible to assess the scale of the problem in the currently occupied territories (about 18% of Ukraine) - things are probably even worse there.
Mine clearance in Ukraine is proceeding extremely slowly, the authors of the Globsec report note. From 2015 to 2021, only 6% of mined areas in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which are controlled by Kyiv, were cleared of mines. At this rate, it could take 757 years to completely clear the country of mines, Globsec believes. But the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine gave an estimate of 70 years. And the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs noted that “according to international standards, one day of active hostilities means a month of mine clearance.” That is, even with the most optimistic estimates, the past 500 days of war are equal to 40 years of mine clearance. And the period will only increase as long as the war continues.
Already, $37,6 billion will be needed to clear Ukraine of explosive objects, the World Bank has calculated.
The main work of mine clearance falls on the shoulders of Ukrainian sappers. Due to active hostilities, they sometimes work at night and collect mines by hand, says one of the commanders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He admits that “everyone’s hands are shaking.” Sometimes sappers cannot even use metal detectors, because they are also visible to the enemy, so they have to crawl on their bellies and look for mines with their eyes. In addition, metal detectors are unable to detect anti-personnel mines made of plastic.
It is precisely because of the lethality of some mines and the cunning methods of their placement by the Russian military that de-occupied territories, where there is no longer fighting, still remain a dangerous place.
For example, one of the most dangerous anti-personnel mines, OZM-72, is called the “Frog” because it bounces, or the “Witch” because it is insidious.
“There are more than two thousand fragments in this mine. They bury it in the ground - a person knocks down the tripwire, and the mine jumps one and a half meters, after which it explodes. This results in a huge affected area. It’s one thing when a mine explodes in the ground and some of the energy and fragments go into the ground, and another thing when everything flies out at a person. Such mines are the worst we have,” says a former Russian military man on condition of anonymity.
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The lack of sappers means that local residents have to clear the mines themselves in the places where they live. Ukrainian farmers are even building homemade mine-clearing machines: they attach rotating hammers to a crawler excavator, which are supposed to provoke mines to explode.
Modern technologies help clear Ukraine faster. In August 2022, the MineFree mobile application was launched there. In it you can view a map of mined areas, receive a notification when approaching a dangerous object, and also report explosive or suspicious objects. Drones are also involved in mine clearance: Denmark provided Ukraine with six thousand drones for this purpose. And Dmitry Eliseenko, immediately after being discharged from the hospital, together with Ukrainian engineers, tested robotic sappers.
Often, during a counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in order to break through the defenses of the Russian army, it is necessary to create a gap without mines for the passage of equipment. Unlike the meticulous demining of liberated territories, this must be done as quickly as possible. Another “inhumane weapon” supplied to the country by the United States - cluster munitions, according to military expert Pavel Luzin, can help Ukraine in such emergency demining.
However, the use of cluster munitions can only increase the number of mines in Ukraine, since 10–15% of small submunitions do not explode immediately, notes military expert Yuriy Fedorov. These small balls filled with explosives settle in the ground over a large area and are also dangerous for civilians - especially for children, who can easily pick them up. That is why in 2008, more than 100 countries signed a convention banning the use of cluster munitions. The United States, Ukraine and Russia did not join the convention, and Russian troops were accused of using cluster munitions in both the war in Syria and Ukraine.
“After the liberation of the DSNS, they went around all the villages at once, and the locals had to check the fields themselves,” says Dmitry Eliseenko. — The instructions from the authorities were as follows: find an explosive dangerous object, take a photograph, put a red flag and send the photo with geolocation. Then they come and pick up the item within a few days.”
According to him, the state simply does not have the resources for more now. “There can be three shells for an entire field of 100 hectares. And to get around it, you need to allocate a whole team and spend two weeks,” explains Dmitry.
Now he is raising money for his treatment abroad, while continuing to help people and animals in Ukraine. “On the day when I blew myself up, Sasha, the owner of the farm with whom I was in the field, said: “I’m leaving this business, we’ll all end up there,” says Dmitry. “And the next day they still went out into the field with that guy, instead of whom I got on the tractor.” And they continue to work to this day. And they keep finding shells.”
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