The wisest way to remove earnings is to blow them up, says a Finnish explosives expert.
The advance of Ukrainian forces in the war against Russia has been amazingly fast in some places, but at times the Ukrainians have had to slow down their offensive. For example, in the recapture of the Kherson region, the Ukrainians proceeded cautiously.
The reason for the caution has been the mines and traps left behind by the retreating Russian troops. With their help, Russia got more time to withdraw its troops to the eastern bank of the Dnieper.
– Areas that the Russians have assumed to be the directions of the Ukrainians’ advance have been mined with anti-personnel and anti-personnel mines. Anti-tank mines have been placed on you and anti-personnel mines on the sides of the roads, says the teacher of the National Defense University’s military skills department, lieutenant colonel Rauli Kortet.
Mines effectively slow down the attacker’s progress. Areas that are suspected of being mined must be scouted for mines and then cleared to make them passable. This takes a lot of time.
A mine can be dismantled by hand if you know how to do it
Mines installed in the ground are searched for with a mine rake, i.e. a device that detects the metal in the mine. There are many methods of demining, depending on the type of mine.
According to Kortet, the simplest and safest way to get rid of a mine is to clear it by detonating it. An explosive charge is placed next to the mine, detonating it also destroys the mine.
Mines can also be removed, for example, with a vehicle-mounted deminer, which digs out the mine.
Brave deminers can also render mines harmless by dismantling them, i.e. removing their detonator. The remaining charge will not explode without a detonator. Footage has emerged from Ukraine where deminers remove the detonators of Russian mines and then carelessly throw the collected mines into a pile.
Kortet emphasizes that there are risks in demining, and it is usually safer to clear a mine in another way. Identifying the type of mine is downright vital for a deminer. There are mines that explode if the detonator is attempted to be removed.
Traps also threaten civilians
Minesetters can make a mine a trap for the person who defuses it. For example, a hand grenade can be placed under an anti-tank mine, which explodes if an attempt is made to remove the mine on top of it. In this way, the aim is to kill the minesweeper and slow down the clearing work even more.
There has also been information from Ukraine about traps set by the Russians, which have been found, for example, in residential buildings abandoned by them.
There are many pictures on social media of, for example, grenades that are set to explode if a door or cabinet is opened in the house.
A trap wire can be pulled into the terrain, stepping on it will detonate the grenade. The trap can also be in some innocent-looking object, such as a cardboard box or a clothespin.
The traps left in the houses hinder the use of the area by the Ukrainian soldiers. In particular, they threaten the civilian population, which hopes to be able to return to their homes.
Terrain unexploded ordnance
Russia is known to use cluster mines in Ukraine, which, when left in the ground, pose a great threat to the civilian population.
“Side mines are long-range mines that can be spread even kilometers away with rocket launchers and mortars, or hundreds of meters away with rockets,” says Kortet.
Minesweepers are designed against both infantry and tanks. They have an area effect: a large number of mines are used to prevent the use of an area of hundreds of meters. Removing a large amount of mines is laborious.
It is also possible that Russia has used cluster weapons in Ukraine, but Kortet does not have exact information on this. Human rights organization Human Rights Watch (you go to another service) said that Russia had used cluster bombs at least in the early stages of the war.
Cluster munitions mean, for example, a rocket launcher’s cargo projectile, which contains dozens of small explosives, i.e. daughter shells. They are supposed to explode as soon as they hit the target, in which case the simultaneous explosive effect is very extensive.
The problem with cluster weapons is that not all daughter shells explode, but remain lying on the ground and can explode, for example, on contact.
In Ukraine, as in all wars, conventional ammunition has also been left on the ground as cobblers, i.e. unexploded. These must be cleared to make the area safe.
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