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- Get it all: there are more than a quarter of a billion explosive objects in the land of new and border regions
Get it all: there are more than a quarter of a billion explosive objects in the land of new and border regions
250,000 square kilometers is approximately the area of the upcoming humanitarian mine clearance, according to most experts. This is more than, for example, Great Britain, which is so actively helping the Kiev regime. And for every square kilometer there are 1 million mines, unexploded shells, ingenious traps and the infamous "jonics". Until the territories are cleared, a full-fledged economic restart of the regions in the free zone is impossible. What needs to be done to solve the problem, we understand the Izvestia material.
In combat mode
Humanitarian or continuous mine clearance is the removal of all explosive objects by at least 99.9%. Currently, mainly selective mine clearance is carried out in the SVO zone, taking into account the combat situation — laying routes for groups on a combat mission or cleaning critical infrastructure facilities.
Perhaps the issue of humanitarian demining may seem premature: the situation is unstable in both the returned and border territories, the issue of uninterrupted operation of power plants and protection from drones is much more urgent, besides, the enemy regularly throws new shells, and the areas need to be cleaned up again. But the task of the upcoming mine clearance is so global, and there are so many issues that need to be addressed, that such early attention is a reasonable prediction, not an attempt to get ahead of ourselves.
Unified approach and coordination
According to experts, with both human and technical resources available, a complete cleanup of new subjects of the Russian Federation and the border area can take up to 100 years: with an average clearance rate of 150 square meters. m per hour and with the involvement of 10 thousand specialists, it will take 93 years. At the same time, there are currently no 10,000 ready-made specialists in Russia.
Continuous demining of territories requires the involvement in this process of many government agencies that are not subordinate to the Ministry of Defense and carry out their activities in accordance with local regulations. That is, the engineering troops of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Russian Guard, the Investigative Committee, and the FSB are engaged in mine clearance, but there is no overall coordination between them. Moreover, each department has its own tasks and approaches.
Experts agree that there is a need for a unified state policy on humanitarian demining of returned and border regions and the creation of a national body in the form of the Federal Mine Safety Service, which develops and implements a unified state policy.
These issues were recently discussed by participants of a closed round table on gum mining, where representatives of the engineering troops, the Russian Guard, manufacturers of mine clearance equipment and specialists in gum mining expressed their opinions. The topic was supported by State Duma deputies and senators.
Oleg Kryzhanovsky, head of the International Mine Action Center (IOC), emphasized the importance of creating a federal agency rather than an agency in an interview with Izvestia.
— According to the Federal Law "On Executive Authorities", the Federal Agency does not have the functions that the service has. The agency has representative functions, but there is no control and supervision function. That is, the agency cannot carry out these works [on mine clearance], and the service may have a unit within its structure that will independently carry out mine clearance work, as well as monitor all organizations involved in this activity. This is the first one. Second. The agency, if it is located within a ministry, will not be able to fully organize interaction between all ministries, departments, and law enforcement agencies involved in this event. That is, the head of the agency cannot assign a task to the Minister of Defense. The head of the mine clearance agency in the Ministry of Emergency Situations cannot assign a task to the director of the FSB to provide some kind of measures," he stressed.
Kryzhanovsky added that about 12 ministries and departments, as well as all law enforcement agencies, are involved in humanitarian demining. And we are talking here not only about the obvious Ministries of Defense and the FSB, but also, for example, about the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministries of ecology and construction.
— You understand what the main problem is. Money is spent, but there is nothing at the exit. There is a field here. It looks the same as it did before cleaning, and it looks the same after cleaning, except for three or four holes that were dug there. And the money has been spent, and it's a lot of money — up to $5 per 1 sq. m. cost according to international estimates. Someone has to be responsible for this and check the quality. (...) It takes decades to clear the territories. The sapper is not made of iron, he has his own standards. He can't run around the field with a mine detector like with a stick. He should walk slowly and quietly, but I do not advise overtaking him," concluded the head of the MPC.
There is no such profession as a sapper
International experience shows that humanitarian demining is never carried out entirely by military personnel, it is not their task — private sapper companies are always involved. In order to implement this practice in Russia, it is necessary to include in the OKVED such a type of economic activity as clearing the area of explosive objects, which is currently missing, which creates serious legal risks for the management of companies involved in mining.
Every case of death or injury of civilian sappers is investigated by both the Prosecutor's Office and the Labor Protection Inspectorate. And for a very long time, company directors have to explain why their employee, who is listed as a specialist or instructor, but not a sapper, was in a minefield. The same legal gap leaves the specialist himself unprotected. If there is no profession, there are no qualification requirements, and there is no appropriate social protection.
Find and neutralize
What you can't deny Ukrainians is their creativity. The main difficulty for a sapper today is the countless variations of improvised explosive devices with low metal content, which are difficult to detect using standard mine clearance tools. Homemade devices are assembled from any improvised means — "jonics", "krapli", something new is constantly appearing. Children's toys, household items, entrances to houses, food, approaches to water are being mined — everything that an ordinary person might need. There are devices that are triggered by the mine detector itself or by movement. This is not counting, in general, understandable and studied anti-tank, anti-personnel mines and artillery ammunition from all over the world.
Both the number of explosive devices and the scale of mine clearance require a significant increase in the production of mine-clearing equipment already accepted for supply and the proactive development of new ones. Moreover, in order to preserve technological sovereignty, it would be much better if Russian manufacturers were fully engaged in this without Chinese components.
— We are well aware that we will not solve the task of humanitarian demining of Donbass and the border area with mine detectors alone. There should be heavy and medium-sized robots, there should be aerial reconnaissance and mine clearance. Necessarily. But the last point in mine clearance is put by the sapper. And we can't exclude a person from the chain yet. In four years of our work, we, as developers and manufacturers of mine clearance equipment, have made great progress. As they say, any action generates resistance," says Vladimir Tkach, CEO of the Protection Group—JUTTA, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the STT GROUP.
According to him, thanks to its proactive developments, the company has managed to create a number of devices that effectively search for complex small targets, including improvised explosive devices with graphite rods as pushers, and various kinds of electronic traps.
— Due to a number of constructive solutions, it was possible to reduce prices by about two to three times without loss of quality and reliability. UAVs for aerial mine clearance are currently being tested quite successfully. But it is important for us, as manufacturers, to understand the volume of the order, including from the state. And our purchase volume is now approximately at the level of the second Chechen War. If you compare the maps of Chechnya and Ukraine, as they say in Odessa, there are two big differences," he stressed.
The task set by the President
President Vladimir Putin was instructed on July 10, 2025, to ensure a powerful economic restart and comprehensive restoration and development of territories affected by shelling by Ukrainian military formations and terrorist acts.
The industrial, agricultural, logistical, and economic opportunities of Donbass and Novorossiya are enormous. According to various estimates, the investment potential of these regions is from 2.5 trillion rubles per year. According to preliminary estimates, the involvement of the lands of the annexed territories in Russia's economic turnover will increase the agricultural sector by 0.5–1% of the country's GDP, in some areas the contribution may amount to 2-3% of the gross regional product (GRP) of the region. The return of 200-300 hectares per year for construction in one large city can attract tens of thousands of residents, hundreds of new enterprises and increase the city's GRP by 1-2% annually. The cumulative increase in national GDP is 0.5–1.5 percentage points over a 5-7-year horizon.
The Federation Council understands the importance of working in this area and is ready to join in solving a large-scale task.
— The demining of our territories and, as a result, the involvement of lands in agricultural turnover, the intensification of mining and simply the normalization of the lives of citizens of the reunified regions is now the number one task, without which the further development of many sectors of the economy and the safety of people on these lands can not even be thought of. (...) At the same time, we have neither the time nor the opportunity to act in the old-fashioned way, as it was after the Great Patriotic War, when mine clearance stretched over decades. Even now, the SVR zone is the largest minefield in the world, and yet our troops continue to advance, liberating more and more territories. Therefore, we need extraordinary approaches — scientific and innovative. I hope that in such discussions as today, we will come to the necessary decisions. If they require legislative changes, we are ready to initiate them," said Dmitry Vorona, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy, Senator from the Zaporizhia region.
Despite the upcoming high costs of both humanitarian demining and reconstruction, the economic impact will be enormous, as the returned regions are an agricultural breadbasket and an industrial Klondike. But in order for the regions to return to a peaceful, safe and prosperous life, sappers will have to walk almost every meter. And this makes advance preparation for the upcoming work even more important.
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