It may take up to five years for Ukraine to dispose of 400 mines in Black Sea - Navy

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Розмінування Чорного моря

It may take five years for Ukraine to dispose 400 mines in the Black Sea, as demining in the sea is very different from demining on land.

According to Censor.NET, citing Ukrinform, this was stated by Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Navy.

"We have a serious operation ahead of us to clear the Black Sea of mines - four hundred mines. Mine clearance in the sea is very different from mine clearance on land, where there is only one plane and two coordinates, but in the sea there are three of them because there is still depth. On land, mines are in a static position, while at sea the situation is dynamic - if a storm tears a mine off its frame, it starts to drift and can be moved by the bottom," Pletenchuk said.

In addition, he said, because of the Russians' explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, in addition to sea mines, river anchor mines, anti-landing mines, and conventional mines got into the waters of the Dnieper-Bug estuary and the Black Sea, which mined both banks of the Dnipro. So the situation there is quite difficult.

The spokesperson also noted that demining will take place in several phases, the main one of which may last up to 5 years.

"The first phase of the mine action operation will last from 3 to 7 months - it is the demining of ship and port berths. I would like to remind you that Kherson and Mykolaiv ports remain blocked, in particular, because of the mine danger and Russian control of the Kinburn Spit. Then the main phase of demining most of the sea will take 3 to 5 years. Unfortunately, the sea will continue to throw up surprises from time to time," said Pletenchuk.

He also added that Ukraine's partner countries in the Black Sea region will need to participate in the demining and noted that such cooperation is already underway.

"All these explosive items are reaching the Romanian and Bulgarian shores, the Turkish Strait and even the Georgian coast. So we hope that a mine action group will join the demining effort. For example, there are two such groups in Europe - in the Baltic and in the Mediterranean. We hope that our partners - Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia - will take part in a full-scale demining operation. Now we already have interaction and cooperation regarding the training of specialists who carry out demining on a daily basis. These teams are constantly working, checking the fairways," said Pletenchuk.

Author: Ольга Кошарна