Mines, trip wires and booby traps are go-to defensive tools for Russia’s military, inflicting grievous wounds on infantry or stalling vehicles. Easy to rig, bury in dirt or cover with debris by the side of a village road, they are devilishly hard to find.
A Ukrainian de-mining team at its compound on the outskirts of Lyman, in eastern Ukraine, April 3, 2023.
Ukrainian land is covered in thousands of Russian mines, trip wires and booby traps. An area four times as large as Switzerland is unsafe because of land mines, the United Nations has estimated. The team, operating outside Lyman, which was liberated from Russian forces last fall, found one booby trap with a trick to fool de-mining teams, a common occurrence. In this instance, it was a claymore mine — an explosive that sprays shrapnel toward its targets — that had a trip wire.
Mine-clearing equipment and techniques have drawn less attention than sophisticated Western weapons like Abrams tanks, though Ukrainian officers say much hinges on these operations. “You focus on your work without being distracted by the sounds” of artillery and small-arms fire during the assault, Ivan said.
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