In the Mykolaiv region, specialized teams clear the fields of thousands of explosive devices left by the Russians. An essential step to relaunch agriculture.
Last month, Dmitro Eliseenko was riding “quite normally” along those fields he knows so well, in the village of Partyzans’ke, not far from Mykolaiv. Although, rectifies the young man, “I was perhaps going a little slower than usual”. That day, at the front of the three-tonne tractor, the loader was raised. At the rear, the seed drill is hitched. The farmer has already passed twice in the morning by this place which was still used as a front line a few weeks ago. When suddenly : “POUM!” An anti-tank mine, then chaos.
His red Umz brand tractor collapsed and ended up lying on its side. Dmitro Eliseenko is violently thrown to the ground. “I must have lost consciousness during 20 or 30 seconds, I see myself crawling out of the cabin. There was glass everywhere, my whole body ached.” The 26-year-old comes to his senses, sees if he still has his legs, then films his face: “I had blood everywhere.” The explosion was overwhelming. The generator he was transporting in the dumpster will be found several tens of meters further.
“I still don’t know how I survived,” testifies Dmitro Eliseenko currently being treated at the Filatov Institute in Odessa, a well-known eye hospital. A tiny foreign body lodged in his cornea. He still cherishes the hope of saving his eye. Doctors, on the other hand, prefer to temporize before considering surgery.
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This volunteer within the “Sunflower Project”, which helps the populations most affected by the war, does not know if he will one day go up on an agricultural machine. But he hopes at least that his story will inspire farmers with the utmost caution. “Roads, fields are not yet cleared, and farmers work at their own risk.” Some are well equipped with metal detectors, to inform the deminers in the event of a suspicious discovery. But these last “do not have enough staff” to deal with all situations.
“Officials say demining could take ten years or more. People can’t wait. They are scared, but they continue to work risking their lives.”
Dmitro Eliseenko, volunteer injured by a mineat franceinfo
Dmitro Eliseenko has an idea. “For me, farmers should learn to equip themselves like soldiers. At least armored windows, then bulletproof vests, and if possible helmets. VS those who survive on a tractor often have their eyes affected, so you need protective goggles.”
His case, in fact, is far from isolated. And this story illustrates the importance of demining, in agricultural regions sometimes described as “Europe’s breadbasket”. To save spring sowing, the Ukrainian Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food plans to clear at least 30-40% of mined agricultural land in the southern regions by mid-May.
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In Kyselivka, once occupied by Russian forces, the fighting destroyed many of the houses as well as the church. The huge grain silos have been ripped open. E t to access the fields, you have to take roads riddled with potholes and craters, remnants of the fighting. In the distance, a few storks search the ground with their beaks, indifferent to the arrival of the heavily equipped deminers. That day, Evgen Skumbry and his team have the task of cleaning up the approaches to an important canal which crosses the agricultural plain. It is essential to secure the area before weeding and restoring the broken concrete.
Overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task
“You never know what awaits us”explains the deputy head of the pyrotechnic group of the National Emergency Service in Mykolaiv. “ Before going to a site, we look on a map at the old Russian positions, and the route taken during their escape. They progress in groups of two, on each side of the canal. The first man walks the search head ten centimeters above the ground, from left to right. The second, equipped with a long stick, pokes the earth at 45 degrees, when it is necessary to identify a threat more precisely.
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The absolute silence is only interrupted by the haunting noises of the detector, which make one think of a strangled duck. “If we find a suspicious object, we define a perimeter in case there is a trap around it. Either we destroy it on the spot, if it is impossible to move, or we take it out and transport it further into the area. of destruction”marked with pieces of wood and flagging tape. Unexploded ordnance (UXO) and remnants of weapons or equipment litter the ground.
“I think about the danger all the time. If I’m not afraid anymore, the worst can happen. In the evening, I try to forget about work, especially since my wife is pregnant.”
Evgen Skumbry, deputy head of the pyrotechnic group of the National Emergency Service in Mykolaivat franceinfo
A handful of minutes are enough to chain the finds. Catch of the day: RPG rocket launcher tubes, an exploded 82mm mortar, the remains of another 120mm and grenade launchers “still active”from which it is better to move away. Despite the urgency of the situation, Evgen Skumbry does not want to take any risks. “Ukrainian agriculture is important for the country. But we must take care of the lives of our men, our colleagues. Sending them to fields with too tall grass would put them in danger.” Sometimes hares and foxes lend incidental assistance to deminers when they set off an explosion by accident.
“We don’t have enough arms, nor time, to inspect all the fields. This is why we are asking farmers to materialize the presence of explosive devices and inform us.” Ten units of the State Emergency Service were mobilized in March, but reinforcements are expected soon. Pyrotechnic units from the police, army and NGOs are also taking part in the efforts.
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At the end of the day, the team will dig a hole to deposit their loot. She will install a charge of TNT and an electric detonator, before unwinding a long wire and taking shelter, for the firing. The great liberating boom will relieve a few hectares of the poison of war. But it will take years to clean up all of Ukraine. At the end of March, the military administration estimated that 80% of the land in the region was ready to be sown, but that 20% were still waiting to be cleared, particularly around Snihourivka, liberated on November 10.
A dilemma for farmers
At the entrance to Mykolaiv, activity has already could resume in the fields. At the “Epi d’or” cooperative, tractors have started to sow barley after taking care of coriander and millet. These are events every time, says, relieved, the director Nadezhda Ivanova. After the start of the war, the 4,000 hectares soon found themselves in the eye of the storm. “There was everything: submunitions, 122 mm mortars… The fields are separated by trees, and there were mines there.”
“The clearance ended in October with the discovery of an S-300 missile, in the field there.”
Nadezhda Ivanova, director of the “Epi d’or” cooperativeat franceinfo
Luckily, none of the 97 workers were injured. “But they were scared, yes. They sometimes said to themselves: ‘What if the deminers forgot something?’ In Mykolaiv, as elsewhere in the country, the units of the emergency services first secured the cities, before the agricultural lands. The farmers marked the places with tape and sent the GPS coordinates to the army.
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One of the cooperative’s farms still bears the traces of the fighting in March 2022, when Russian forces were at the gates of the city, before being repelled. The roof of the barn is riddled with holes that let in light. The windows of tractors and harvesters are studded with shards. “We have a precise timetable to follow. So, from March 20, we started working again”, explains manager Ihor Verba. R turn in the fields “was not a very pleasant situation”. There was “of fear, of course, but also the desire to feed the population and the herds”.
Before taking his leave and returning to his sunflower sowing, Ihor Verba presents some remnants of explosives, kept in a display case. The farmer knows that curiosity can be expensive: some time ago he noticed a shape in one of his fields. He approached. It was a box of Russian food rations. “I opened it very carefully: there was a grenade inside.”