Ukrainian sappers have been actively demining territories for several weeks before a possible counteroffensive.
Thousands of mines have been installed along the front line, which makes it much more difficult to liberate the occupied territory, writes The Washington Post.
“Ukrainian troops now need to pass through these lines without notifying the Russians, who will notice if heavy equipment enters because explosions will be heard. This means that sappers must go out into the fields and inconspicuously remove mines. They do it manually. At night,” the newspaper reports.
It is not indicated exactly where active demining of territories takes place. However, it is noted that sappers use specially modified machines based on the well-known German battle tank Leopard 2 and the Soviet-developed UR-77 “Meteorit” for demining.
Ukrainian sappers explained to the newspaper that Russia lays mines according to the scheme: one line of anti-tank mines, a line of anti-personnel mines together with trap mines, and then another line of anti-tank mines. They emphasized that finding anti-personnel mines is the most difficult.
“Ukrainians will have to break through these fortifications in order to win back the territory and oust the Russians. And this, in turn, requires special training and equipment, as well as careful intelligence to find the weak points of the occupiers,” WP writes.
The newspaper suggests that probably all these are the reasons why the long-awaited counteroffensive has not started yet.
Earlier, the VRU said that about five million hectares of agricultural land are still unfit for use due to mining, contamination by explosive remnants or ongoing hostilities.
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