2y ago

Ukraine is now the most mined country. It will take decades to make safe.

wapo.st /3Orhogo

19 comments

Demining Ukraine is something that future russian generations can and must pay for.
- Sure thing, Russians won't be able to avoid that on captured territories.
With Ukraine being a breadbasked, I wonder how many fields are unusable.
probably lots. That sucks for a lot of people.
- The specific mine used is effective against people, but known to sometimes not even pop car tires. Absolutely worst case scenario: farmers can run a tractor plow over the fields a few times.
Laos 2.0
They can't mark and track these with GPS? It seems like it would be a smart idea to keep notes on the precise location of every mine, and whether or not it's been removed or exploded. It's not like it's the 1950s, when a landmine's location was a mystery after it was buried. (Or is Russia planting these mines?)
- They do exactly that in sane countries. Russia just drops them out of airplanes with zero fucks given where they land.
  
  Tbf Russia's PFM-1 is based off the US' BLU-43. The difference is the US went "Oh wow, this is a really bad situation" and stopped using them half a century ago.
  Double tbf: Ukraine also has 5.5 million of these mines themselves.
- The vast majority are from Russia and the ones Ukraine uses are mostly anti tank mines which are less dangerous to individuals while Russia is using a shit ton of anti personnel mines.
- Russia is mining too. They don't even tell their own soldiers where their mines are.
- ask russia to track their mines, but make ukrainians suffer is their objective anyway
- Keeping track of the mines location is just an invitation for your opponent to gain a map of all of your troops movements
  
  It would be a humanitarian thing to do after a conflict is over. "We're leaving but here is where the mines are."
- Putting antennas and batteries in mines increases production cost.
  The mine would broadcast it's signal, effectively telling the opposing army exactly where it is so they can disarm it. Effectively rendering mines useless, more of a speed bump than anything.
I am quite eager to hear how this is the EU's fault!
Fuck it, take Russia and give it to the Ukrainians.

19 comments