Ukrainian deminers clear liberated areas before winter

Small and dangerous mines and other explosives left behind by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine are an urgent challenge for deminers ahead of the onset of winter in the districts they have left. “Without us, there is no chance of fixing services like electricity before winter,” said Artem, 33, who leads a demining team working around the town of Isium, recently liberated by Ukrainian forces.

“Today we found more than thirty mines and artillery shells, mostly bombs,” says Artem, whose ten-man team is tasked with clearing areas around critical infrastructure such as power cables or water and gas pipelines. “Every day we start where we left off” the day before, he adds, watching the electricians carefully advance in the direction of a severed cable in a sunflower field, behind demining equipment.

Other experts would stack discovered landmines, their detonators safely removed, on the back of a truck to destroy them.

Artem was unmoved by the danger of his team’s task, probing the edges of the road and advancing cautiously through the high meadows. “It’s our job and we know how to do it, but now more than ever it’s our duty,” he said.

“We have 35 people, divided into seven groups, coming from different parts of Ukraine,” said Vassyl Melnyk, 42, who heads a demining team stationed in the Izium district. “No one knows how long the clearance process will take. Despite the help of international organizations, we have not finished finding abandoned mines since the beginning of the conflict in 2014.

But if the deminers “work quickly,” the district could be cleared by November, allowing essential services to resume operations over the winter. Since Izioum’s liberation, his teams have covered hundreds of hectares in the district and discovered more than 5,000 mines around positions previously occupied by the Russians.

Deminers found both anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines and artillery shells, as well as PFM-1 mines, known as “butterfly” mines, which are particularly destructive and banned by an international treaty not signed by Russia. These small green mines with wings, called “petals” in Ukraine, are very dangerous because they can be picked up by children, Vasyl Melnyk underlines.

On a road where only military vehicles go forward, Sacha’s team hammers poles into the sides of the road, with a skull and crossbones sign that says “DANGER – landmines!” “Now the next mine is two meters away, so here we are safe, more or less,” says Sacha, 44, smoking a cigarette.