The Russians have retreated, but their traces remain on the ground.
In the village of Hrakove, Ukraine, farmer Oleksandr Kryvtsov drives his tractor. But Oleksandr is not sitting in the wheelhouse. In the bucket, on the tractor, he crouched. The ground beneath is deadly. In his hand he held the remote control.
The tractor was fitted with armor panels which he had removed from a Russian tank.
Oleksandr Kryvtsov, who is the general manager of an agricultural company, decided he couldn’t wait for help from the official miners. He removed mines with his own machine.
– We do this because the time for sowing crops has come. Rescue services were very busy, Oleksandr told Reuters news agency.
The remote controlled tractor can withstand the explosion. The armor of the damaged Russian military vehicle protects the tractor body. A system allows him to remotely control the tractor from a digging bucket suspended in the air nearby.
After Russian troops were forced to withdraw from eastern Ukraine, dangerous mines and missiles have made it difficult for farmers to sow grain for the next harvest.
The war in Ukraine is also called the war on the world dinner plate. Both Ukraine and Russia are exporters of some of the world’s most important agricultural commodities – such as wheat, barley, maize and sunflower seeds.
Ukraine exports about ten percent of the world’s wheat, and fifty percent of the world’s sunflower oil. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter in 2020, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Ukraine is the fifth largest in the world.
The head of the mine disposal unit, Serhii Dudak, believes it will take several years to clear mines from the field in Hrakove by hand.
– We didn’t have time to remove mines. The amount of work is enormous, says Dudak.
According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, there are Russian mines in about 30 percent of Ukraine.
Authorities hope to clear mines of agricultural land as soon as possible. Then life-threatening mines can be replaced with seeds.
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