Deputy Commander of JFO: Mine clearance in Donbas will last for decades
"Mine clearance will last for decades as there are thousands and hundreds of thousands of landmines and unexploded ordnance along the contact line. Russia supplies everything there. First and foremost, it’s unusable stuff which may even be delivered for disposal on Ukrainian land. Second, modern samples are used, including mines prohibited by the international convention. The Russian side deliberately did not sign [the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction] and did not agree to their destruction in due time. Currently, they deliver these mines to temporarily uncontrolled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. It’s a sort of disposal... At some positions we demined, there were 300-400 landmines on several dozen square meters. There are anti-personnel and anti-tank mines," Deputy Commander of the Joint Forces Operation, head of the Trilateral Contact Group’s security subgroup Bohdan Bondar said in an interview with Defense Express online media outlet.
Responding to questions about the state of the economy in the occupied part of Donbas, Bondar noted that considerable part of enterprises did not operate or was completely destroyed or some parts were cut off by Russia for scrap. In addition, the flooding of coalmines is a pressing environmental issue. Given that Russia is not ready to invest in the development of this region, in Bondar's opinion, "it is an absolutely depressed area in the long run, uninhabited, without industry, simply saturated with weapons and ammunition."
As reported, the humanitarian demining of 36 sites with a total area of more than 250.7 hectares in the liberated territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions was carried out thanks to the financial support of the governments of ten world countries.
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