Russian bomb squad clears mines on the front lines of eastern Ukraine
▻http://mashable.com/2015/04/06/russian-bomb-squad-ukraine
"Gazetta" holds an 82mm mortar round inside the First Strike Company van in Debaltseve, Ukraine.
Image: Evgeny Feldman, Mashable
They say they feel fear but you wouldn’t know it by watching them handle the explosives.
The members of this bomb squad — mostly Russian Cossacks — don’t use blast suits or special equipment. Instead they rely on steady hands, common household pliers and uncommon nerves of steel.
One wrong move means the difference between living and dying, says Denis “Raven” Zaitsev, the 31-year-old leader of the 19-man bomb-disposal team in Debaltseve that calls itself First Strike Company.
“It’s like dancing with death,” he says.
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Since July, Ukrainian bomb disposal teams have removed more than 33,000 unexploded ordnance from the front lines.
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Also in the van — more worryingly — are boxes of explosives, land mines and anti-tank mines as well as the anti-personnel bounding fragmentation mines that jump when tripped, exploding into a million lethal shards. There are grenades and blocks of C-4. Beneath our seat are two 155mm howitzer shells. All of it collected from Debaltseve.
“We disarm about 30 mines, explosives or booby traps every day,” Zaitsev says.
Now these things are rattling around the van’s floor as we bounce across the rocket-ravaged steppe en route to the former Ukrainian army camp to blow up all the ordnance.
That is, if we make it there, I think. We could be dead men, riding rickety Russian wheels.
Zaitsev sees my concern and tries to put me at ease, borrowing a quote from Tolstoy. “You can’t die twice, and you can’t avoid dying once,” he says.
