Civilians are at threat as at least 14 percent of the country is now littered with mines and unexploded ordnance.
before this month, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded a special order to Patron, a two-and-a-half-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, which has surfaced as a doubtful idol in the three-month-long Russian siege of the country.
Patron is a military canine that has scented out hundreds of mines and explosive bias planted by the overrunning colors in the different corridors of the besieged country since Russia began” the special operation” in Ukraine.
In a war that has engulfed millions of people, Patron’s heroics aren’t just a citation in Ukraine’s struggle to survive but a diurnal memorial of the grim reality faced by the country’s people — the ever-present trouble from mines in their coming step.
According to rough estimates, nearly 14 percent of the country’s area — which translates to further than 600 square kms — is now bestrewn with mines.
Ceyhun Asimov, an expert on Russia, says that mines and other explosive bias are visible in places from where the overrunning colors have withdrawn, including areas around Kyiv. “ It’s possible to see remains of unexploded artillery, especially in mercenary areas, fields, metropolises, and structures, ” Asimov tells TRT World.
He says that Russia’s policy of laying mines in areas it’s forced to give updates back to World War II. “ Russia manages to blackjack its opponents with charts of the mines it plants … It’s possible to give further exemplifications from history to understand Russia’s mine strategy or policy, ” Asirov adds.
Ukraine’s chairman had asked the transnational community to treat the act of planting mines by Russian colors as a “ war crime. ”
“ Due to the conduct of the Russian army, our home is presently one of the most defiled by mines in the world. And I believe this should also be considered a war crime of Russian colors, ” Zelenskyy had said in a videotape communication in April.
Besides Ukrainian municipalities and metropolises — and indeed agrarian fields littered with mines and unexploded ordnance shells — Russian colors allegedly have also planted mines in the ocean off the seacoast of Odesa.
Experts say that the unborn landmine clearing exercise would bear immense force, as much as it was needed in Afghanistan, a country that has been reeling from decades of conflict with landmines bestrew across its municipalities, townlets, and metropolises.
Besides Afghanistan, thousands of civilians have been killed or mutilated for life in countries like Syria and Iraq which have seen civil wars and irruption by foreign countries.
Source: TRT World
