It’s a dangerous job but somebody’s got to do it
Nicholas Blanford reports on the Ukranian UNIFIL battalion’s battle to destroy an explosive legacy of occupation

A short blast on a whistle and a hollow thump of an explosion briefly shatter the placid calm of an afternoon along the “Israeli” border in south Lebanon. A black cloud of smoke, dirt and dust is thrown into the air from the blast, only to be immediately whipped away on the hot breeze.
Ukraine’s defense minister, Lieutenant General Oleksandr Chapovskyi, in Lebanon to inspect his troops, grunts his approval and marches back to his vehicle.
The Ukrainian UNIFIL battalion has just successfully destroyed another handful of “Israeli” land mines. The devices ­ “Israeli”-made No. 4 anti-personnel mines ­ are part of an almost continuous string of minefields stretching along the border from Ras Naqoura on the coast to the foothills of Mount Hermon.
The Ukrainian soldiers are uncertain how many mines were destroyed in the blast. Perhaps four or five. A tiny fraction when one considers that there are an estimated 130,000 land mines in south Lebanon.
At this isolated minefield beside Boundary Pillar 13 (BP13), southwest of Aitta Shaab, it has taken a week to destroy 250 land mines.
Colonel Oleg Khavroniuk, the Ukrainian battalion’s commanding officer, has said that under the present operational circumstances, it will take 37 years to remove the weapons from along the border alone.
The Ukrainians have been tasked with clearing a path through the minefield to the border opposite an “Israeli” outpost at BP13. The mines could have been planted more than 20 years ago. Winter rains and wind have exposed several of the deadly devices. Four of them lie in a row, 1 meter apart, their raised olive-green lids waiting patiently for an unsuspecting foot to set off the charge.
“This is a very dangerous place,” mutters Lieutenant Colonel Victor Baladynsky.
The 650-strong Ukrainian battalion is used to difficult mine-clearing operations. The battalion has gained the bulk of its experience removing huge quantities of mines left over from World War II in Ukraine. This enabled them to learn the unpredictable nature of land mines that have remained buried for decades. More recently, the battalion served in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
A recently installed anti-personnel mine may require 8 to 10 kilograms of pressure to detonate. But a mine that has been buried for years is less predictable.
“With an old mine, it could take as little as 1 kilogram to explode. On the other hand, the fuse could have rusted and you could stamp on the mine without it detonating. It’s impossible to know for each one,” explains Khavroniuk. The Ukrainian colonel has personally destroyed more than 4,500 mines in his career, the highest number in the Ukrainian Army.
The bulk of the anti-personnel land mines the battalion unearths are “Israeli” No. 4 mines and French-designed 1951 mines which the “Israelis” manufacture.
“The 1951 contains about 90 grams of explosive. It’s very small but very dangerous. It can easily blow your foot off,” Khavroniuk says.
The 1951 mine is made almost entirely of plastic. Only the detonating pin is metallic. But because the pin is about the size of a pencil tip, the mine is almost invisible to a metal detector.
“Metal detectors aren’t much use in south Lebanon because of the amount of shrapnel in the soil,” Khavroniuk says. Even the high iron content of the sedimentary rock in south Lebanon can mislead metal detectors.
The battalion has encountered other mines, including a huge Claymore-style mine which is positioned above ground and detonated by a tripwire. When the mine explodes, it blasts hundreds of ball bearings in an arc toward whatever tripped the wire. Although that mine was “Israeli”, Hizbullah guerrillas used to manufacture their own version of the Claymore mine for roadside bombs, which were used with deadly effect against the occupation forces.
The mine was found at BP18, on the border south of Yaroun. The battalion cleared a path through the minefield to link a newly constructed Irish observation post with the rest of the UNIFIL area of operations.
“The soldiers were working in 50C heat. They could only remain on the field for 20 minutes at a time,” Khavroniuk says.
Each minefield is scrutinized before de-mining starts.
“We think of each minefield as a game of chess,” Khavroniuk says. “We give a lot of time to reconnaissance. We study not only the terrain but the description of the minefield. We analyze our previous experience and if necessary ask for helicopter recon. After all that, we begin the breach of the minefield.”
The human element of mine clearing takes a back seat initially. The Ukrainians have 20 different vehicles for de-mining. They include BAT 2, a multi-purpose vehicle protected even against radioactivity, and specially converted T-54 tanks equipped with rollers and flails.
The initial breach is made with a rocket trailing explosive rope fired over the minefield. The rope explodes, clearing a narrow path through the field which the sappers and other machines then expand.
“It’s equipment, equipment, equipment, until we’re sure that the worst danger is over, then we send in the soldiers,” Baladynsky says.
More than 100 mines were destroyed in the operation at BP18, the first for the battalion in Lebanon.
Land mines are also liable to move around in the soil over lengthy periods of time, which renders minefield maps useless.
Most minefields have a narrow “security strip” between the barbed wire fence and the first row of mines. Depending on the terrain, the security strip could be as little as 3 meters or as deep as 60 meters.
Khavroniuk says that when his battalion cleared a field at BP32, beside the “Israeli” settlement of Manara, they were informed that there were no mines planted in the “security strip.”
“But we found mines in the strip, up to 45 meters from where the minefield began. There’s no way of knowing if they were put there deliberately or not,” he says.
Isn’t 45 meters rather a long way for mines to travel by themselves? Khavroniuk just smiles.
Although the main task of the Ukrainian battalion is to remove mines along the border, they also regularly stumble across unexploded ordinance and even booby-trap devices.
The battalion sited one of its four positions on a minefield beside the Hamra crossing into the former occupation zone on the coast south of Tyre. The battalion cleared the minefield and destroyed 14 unexploded shells. They also discovered a mine with a delayed timer which had been washed up on the shore beside the new camp.
“The timer no longer worked but the explosives were still there,” Khavroniuk says.
The mine was blown up in the sea. Khavroniuk ordered a full search of the shore beside the camp for further mines or unexploded ordinance before allowing his soldiers to swim in the sea.
Booby traps provide an additional danger to the Ukrainian sappers. While inspecting an area near a new Fijian UNIFIL post on a hill overlooking Naqoura, a team of sappers found two unexploded “Israeli” 120mm tank shells hidden in a bush.
“The first shell was removed and there was no problem. The sapper thought the second shell would also be easy,” Khavroniuk says.
But as the sapper bent down to pick it up, he noticed a wire sticking out of one end of the shell. He also saw that the shell was resting on a stone wedge.
“It was a booby-trapped shell. The wire led into an explosive charge hidden in the ground beneath the shell. If the sapper had picked up the shell, the explosives would have detonated,” Khavroniuk says.
The bomb was blown up in a controlled explosion.
“The sapper can take nothing for granted,” says Khavroniuk. “He can’t make one mistake and can’t trust anything.”

The Daily Star, 7-10-2000