Russia already demined 500 hectares of woodland in the Chechen Republic.

Russian Defense Ministry units have demined about 500 hectares of woodland in the Chechen Republic since this spring and defused about 3,000 explosives planted in 1994-2000, head of the task force for the mine-clearing operation in Chechnya and Ingushetia Colonel Boris Aleshin said.

(source: sputnik)

An area of about 8,300 hectares is to be demined in the region, he added. "Mines have been removed from two wooded areas near Grozny. About 1,200 explosive devices, mainly antipersonnel mines, were detected and defused in an area of 291 hectares near an old tuberculosis hospital not far from Grozny," Aleshin said. "In a second wooded area towards Berkat Yurt near Grozny, the servicemen demined 177.7 hectares and defused more than 1,500 explosive devices, mainly antipersonnel mines," he added.

Since April 2017, a team of 450 sappers has demined about 2,000 hectares in Chechnya, including about 1,500 hectares of farmland on request, and defused 9,500 explosives. Since 2012, the team has detected and defused about 20,000 explosives, with one third of them over the last year. "The number of detected explosive devices has grown because earlier, the sappers demined only farmland but in early 2017 they started to remove mines from wooded areas as well," Aleshin said. "We have mine maps but they do not always correspond to the reality. We take them into account but it sometimes happens that the map shows that there are no mines there, we come to an area of five hectares and see that there are explosive devices everywhere and we demine it and defuse all explosives," he added. Before the yearend, more than 1,000 hectares of woodland in the Chechen Republic are planned to be demined.

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