The Ukrainian army has made only slight progress during the counter-offensive in recent hours. The fault has densely mined terrain, which is difficult to break through.
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The Ukrainian counter-offensive is advancing with difficulty. The fault of a minefield which slows down the progress of armored vehicles. According to local authorities, there are 170,000 square kilometers of mines. The surface is four times the territory of Switzerland.
These defenses are very effective especially that for the specialists, it is a question of “fresh leads”. “They were installed a short time ago so they are all in working order”, assures Léo Péria-Peigné, arms researcher at IFRI. “In Africa, there are also large mined areas, but these are old mines that are very often inactive.”
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Contrary to popular belief, minefields are not fixed. Russians and Ukrainians have the means to trap remote sites with rocket launchers. The Kremlin army can very well, with a few shots, make an area considered by kyiv as secure impassable. “The first wave passes with deminers to ensure the second wave. Except that in the meantime, we can remine remotely. The second wave will therefore take damage and we will have to call back demining resources. It’s wasted time.”
Russia has also developed another use for these remotely deployed minefields: to cut off the retreat of its adversaries, by pulling back lines after an advance. A way to lock them up and further increase the area of Ukrainian land covered by these explosives.