Several videos shared on social networks show how American engineers, who are volunteers in Ukraine, operate in conditions where Russia has mined large areas of Ukraine.

James Vasquez, the most famous American soldier fighting on the side of the Ukrainians, shared the records on his Twitter page. He announced last week that he had returned to Ukraine after returning to the United States for several months to resolve personal issues.

The first recording shows how mines planted by the Russians are detected with a metal detector, and Vazquez notes that “this guy is fearless, I’m not going to lie, I’m very behind when he does his thing!”.

In the second frame, you can see how the mine is being dug up and neutralized, and the American engineer explains that its detonator has already been removed. “They didn’t lie when they said ‘mine,'” he jokes about the sign that warns of the presence of a minefield.

Separate footage shows how mines pulled from the ground are defused, with an engineer showing how he uses a “wrench” to defuse them. “You hope you don’t have a boom!” he jokes.

The Russians placed a huge number of mines in Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi estimated at the beginning of June that 20% of Ukraine’s territory was mined by the armed forces of the Russian Federation.

Zelensky reminded that Russia has been waging war against Ukraine since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea and started a separatist war in the east of the country. The President of Ukraine stated that Moscow controlled almost 43 thousand square kilometers of the territory of Ukraine even before the start of the “special forces operation” on February 24.

Last week, the British Ministry of Defense accused the Russian military of planting butterfly mines in Ukraine, known for a large number of child victims.

In its assessment of the development of the war, published on August 8, the Ministry of Defense in London said that in the Donetsk and Kramatorsk regions it is very likely that Russia tried to use PFM-1 and PFM-1C cluster anti-personnel mines.

Colloquially known as the “butterfly mine”, the PFM-1 series is a highly controversial and indiscriminate weapon. PFM-1s were used to devastating effect in the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in the 1980s, where they are believed to have maimed large numbers of children who mistook them for toys.

“It is very likely that the Soviet-era reserves used by Russia have degraded over time, and now the mines are extremely unreliable and unpredictable. This poses a threat to both the local population and humanitarian demining operations,” the British assessment said last Monday.

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