In the Sumy region, active demining of territories that were liberated from enemy occupation continues. With the help of mechanized demining machines, 39.92 hectares of land have already been cleared. Currently, sappers of the Interregional Rapid Response Center in the Okhtyr district are using the MV-4 machine to survey land in one of the settlements.
In general, since the beginning of the war, sappers have neutralized more than 9,000 explosive objects and conducted a survey of an area of more than 4,913 hectares. This was reported by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
However, even with all the efforts of sappers, Sumy region remains one of the most mined territories of Ukraine. The aggressor continues his insidious actions. So, just in the last two weeks, 6 settlements of Shostkinsky and Sumy districts were shelled and mined by air mines with RBK 500 rockets - "ball bombs" that mine an area of 400-500 meters. Hundreds of ball bombs were dropped from the air on the villages of Stara Huta, Romashkove, Marchikhina Buda, Muraveyne, Basivka and Progress, Volodymyr Artyukh, the head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration, said during a briefing. Disarmament of air-ball bombs, which Russian troops drop on the territory of the region, is carried out by the bomb squads of the National Police in the Sumy region, as well as the military.
The police report that the aviation one-time bomb cartridges contain dangerous ammunition - SHOB-0.5 spherical fragmentation aviation bombs.
When ejected from the bomb cartridge, these bombs, resembling small silver spheres the size of a tennis ball, scatter over a wide area. Upon contact with the surface, trees and objects, they explode, affecting all living things around.
"Some of the aerial ball bombs fail to detonate and can get stuck in the ground or remain on the surface of the soil. In such cases, specialists of the Department of Explosive Service of the National Security Service of the Sumy Region go to the scene of the event and carry out demining of the territory, using metal detectors to detect these explosive objects. This is especially important because such silver balls, which do not explode immediately, can attract people's attention and make them want to get closer to them. However, this is strongly discouraged as there is a serious risk of explosion. Under the aluminum casing of the ball bombs, there are more than three hundred ready-made fragments in the form of steel balls with a diameter of 5.5 mm and 70 grams of explosives," explains Ihor Chernyak, head of the department of the explosives department of the National Security Service of Ukraine in the Sumy region.
