Over three years of war, 355 Ukrainian civilians, incl 18 children, die due to Russian explosive objects – Defense Ministry
Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, 811 incidents involving civilians due to explosive objects have been recorded, 1,158 civilians have been injured, 335 of whom have died, including 18 children, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported on its website on Tuesday.
Head of the mine action department, deputy head of the Main Directorate for Mine Action, Civil Defense and Environmental Safety of the Ministry of Defense Oleh Shuvarsky noted that threats from explosive objects affect the lives of more than 6 million Ukrainians, especially in the de-occupied territories of Ukraine, and reported that the Russians in many cases plant mines haphazardly, in particular in agricultural fields, in residential areas and on public roads. Some 75% of incidents are with mines.
The most polluted regions remain Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Kherson, where more than 50% of all incidents occurred.
"Cluster munitions pose a particular danger both when clearing de-occupied territories from explosive ordnance and when carrying out humanitarian demining activities, due to incidents related specifically to their detonation. The use of such munitions by Russians blocks restoration work in these territories, the restoration of transport infrastructure facilities, heat, gas, water supply, power lines and other facilities that are necessary for the life support of de-occupied regions. And the low quality of production of engineering munitions and their long storage time lead to disruption of the self-destruction mechanisms of some types of these munitions. Such munitions are unpredictable and extremely dangerous. In addition, many modern Russian mines have seismic and magnetic sensors, which significantly complicates the process of their neutralization," he said.
Shuvarsky added that a large number of modern mines are manufactured in a plastic case and have a low content of metal elements, which significantly complicates their search, especially with the use of mine detectors. In addition, according to enemy documents, a certain number of mines during continuous mining of territories are installed as booby traps, which also requires significant time and appropriate skills and practical experience to defuse them.
According to him, since the beginning of the full-scale aggression, the demining units of the Security and Defense Forces have found and destroyed almost 920,000 explosive objects.