Understanding the Landscape of Ukraine's Landmine Crisis (2024)

FAQs

Who planted landmines in Ukraine? ›

Mines planted by Russian forces have hampered attempts by Ukrainian troops to liberate captured territory, killing soldiers, slowing ground offensives and wrecking armored vehicles. Ukraine's military has had to mount elaborate and time-consuming efforts to clear mines and carve out assault lanes for its armored units.

Egypt as a Case Study. Egypt has been listed as the country most contaminated by landmines in the world with an estimate of approximately 23,000,000 landmines.

According to the Ukrainian authorities, most farmland areas 'contaminated' by mines are located in Kherson, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv oblasts.

The widespread use of landmines in conflict situations around the world and their continuing legacy for the civilian population in injuries, amputations, disabilities and economic costs has been recognized as a major problem.

Russia has been producing and laying mines on an industrial scale in Ukraine. They're now scattered over an area the size of Florida; the minefields can be up to 10km (6.2 miles) deep.

Ukrainian brigades since then have advanced a few miles along several axes. Trenches have defined the fighting. The Russians dug trenches in order to slow the Ukrainians' advance; now the Ukrainians are digging them in order to consolidate their territorial gains.

Landmines are generally buried 6 inches (15 centimeters) under the surface or simply laid above ground. Buried landmines can remain active for more than 50 years. Landmines come in two categories, anti-personnel landmines and anti-tank landmines.

MR BROWN: The United States last used anti-personnel landmines in 1991 during the Gulf War. There was one single incident of one munition being used in the 2002 timeframe in Afghanistan. But otherwise, the United States has not used landmines in – anti-personnel landmines in any significant way since 1991.

The highest number of annual casualties was recorded in Syria (834) and Ukraine (608). Amidst the conflict in Ukraine, the country saw a ten-fold increase in the number of civilian landmine and ERW casualties compared to 2021 (58). Yemen and Myanmar both recorded more than 500 casualties in 2022.

Ukraine has extremely rich and complementary mineral resources in high concentrations and close proximity to each other. The country has abundant reserves of coal, iron ore, natural gas, manganese, salt, oil, graphite, sulfur, kaolin, titanium, nickel, magnesium, timber, and mercury.

What type of landmines are in Ukraine? ›

The hand or mechanically emplaced TM-62 series anti-vehicle blast mines equipped with an MVCh-62 pressure activated fuze appears to be the most common type of anti-vehicle mine used since Russia's full-scale invasion. These mines are often buried but are also seen laid on top of the ground.

There is a common misperception that a landmine is armed by stepping on it and only triggered by stepping off, providing tension in movies. In fact the initial pressure trigger will detonate the mine, as they are designed to kill or maim, not to make someone stand very still until it can be disarmed.

Landmines are easy to make, cheap, and effective weapons that can be deployed easily over large areas to prevent enemy movements. Mines are typically placed in the ground by hand, but there are also mechanical minelayers that can plow the earth and drop and bury mines at specific intervals.

Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves.

In April 2014, fighting broke out between Russian-backed separatist forces and Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine. On 24 February 2022, Russia initiated a currently-ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in which both antipersonnel and anti-vehicle landmines have been utilized.

While the use of explosive devices goes back to 13th-century China, when the Song Dynasty military used bombs to fend off invading Mongolians, the land mine didn't take its modern form as a metal container rigged with gunpowder, a fuse and a detonation cap until the American Civil War.

If not destroyed, those landmines remain ready to be used any time. The biggest stockpiles of antipersonnel landmines are held by: Russia, Pakistan, India, China, and the United States.

By the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Confederates had devel- oped the technical forerunners of many modern landmine and fuze types.