Last week, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the second village 30 km from Donetsk — Rivnopil. A terrible picture appeared before the liberators: the entire village was heavily mined along the perimeter, all the houses were destroyed. There is not a single inhabitant in the village. Another settlement that used to be alive, but now it does not exist.
"There was not a single civilian in Rivnopil since, by and large, the settlement was destroyed almost to the ground," Valery Shershen, spokesman for the press centre of the Tauride Defense Forces.
Shershen reports that the level of mines in the territory is of a "very complex nature": the Russians strongly did not want the Ukrainian troops to advance, so they mined the land with everything they had: cluster shells, Hurricanes and Tornados (the Vienna Convention prohibits them), with the help of artillery transport and even remotely. The occupiers also had a second reason for using so many mines: to prevent the evacuation of the local population. A population that is no longer alive.
''In front of hostile positions, they (the Russian invaders — ed.) replaced everything they could. And manually mines were installed, and if possible, they also used a PMZ-4 trailed minelayer or a caterpillar minelayer. Remotely passed the territory — this is quite often practised: there is such a remote mining machine Agriculture," Shershen.
According to the speaker, in order to enter this minefield, the engineering troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine "broke through the corridor" and allowed the rest of the brigade to enter. There is still a lot of work.
On a cover of the article — Bakhmut now.
