BILA TSERKVA, Ukraine — For the demining crews of Ukraine’s State Emergency Services, removing Russian explosives is a dangerous game.
These individuals are tasked with cleaning up land mines, fallen missiles, and other unexploded ordnance from fields and villages across the Ukrainian countryside. Their work must be done cautiously, as one wrong move could prove fatal.
But even when the Russian bombs stop falling one day, the work will continue for years to come.
Ukraine is now the most heavily mined country in the world, with up to 23% of its territory potentially contaminated with land mines and unexploded ordnance, according to the United Nations Development Programme. Some other estimates say this figure is even higher; clearing such a mess will cost tens of billions of dollars.
To help clean up land mines and minimize the risk to humans, the State Emergency Service relies on a collection of drones and robots to spot and then remove the buried explosives. Business Insider recently met with two members of a 72-person demining unit that operates these tools to see how they work.
At a mine-clearing site south of Kyiv, the deminers explained to BI how they remove mines from the ground. One of the safest ways they do this is with the help of a small, remote-controlled robot resembling the character “WALL-E” from the animated film of the same name.
The robot can only clear anti-personnel mines like POM-3 or PFM-1 that are designed to be used against people and not anti-tank mines, which are more sensitive to heavier objects like vehicles. The Ukrainian mine-clearing unit does operate larger, remote-controlled vehicles that can tackle anti-tank mines.
The robot, which Ukraine got from Poland, is about the size of a carry-on suitcase, and it’s controlled by a tablet-like device that shows the situation through a camera.
Volodymyr and Ivan, the two Ukrainian deminers, showed BI the robot in action.
Every move is slow and methodical and requires precision maneuvering by the operator, similar to an arcade claw machine. It has little plastic treads and can seamlessly transition from road to grass like a tank, though obviously a fraction of the size.
When the Ukrainian deminers arrive at a contaminated site, they size up the situation and decide which tool to use. They can either blow up the mines on the spot or use the robots to remove them with their claws and then detonate them later or disable the threat.
The unit prefers to work during the day since it is easier to spot threats on the ground. They work five days a week all around the Kyiv region and spend the other two days back at the base waiting for a call to clean up some potentially deadly mess.
The Ukrainian deminers told BI that they will be cleaning up mines for a very long time. But robots like this one make the job just a little easier — and a lot safer.
The small robot is part of a family of tools that Ukrainian deminers use to remove mines from the battlefield and civilian areas.
The unit has the larger ones to clear anti-tank mines and aerial drones to map out contaminated areas. And there’s always the more old-school method of waving handheld detectors, but that carries much more risk.
Drones and robots have become an increasingly common presence in the Ukraine war, with both sides using small, remote-controlled vehicles and aircraft for both lethal and nonlethal tasks.
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