MOSCOW. Jan 21 (Interfax) - Over 85,000 hectares of land have been demined in the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions during the special military operation, yet it could take decades to completely clear these territories of explosives, Russian Engineering Forces Commander Yury Stavitsky said.
"Given the high intensity of use of foreign-made cluster munitions by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the pollution of the new regions of the Russian Federation with explosive devices, it could take decades to completely clear these lands," Stavitsky said in an interview with the Russian Defense Ministry's newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda.
"More than 85,000 hectares of land have been cleared, over 17,000 buildings, more than 2,800 kilometers of roads, and more than 1,140 kilometers of water mains, gas pipelines and power transmission lines have been examined, and over 1.5 million explosive devices have been detected and neutralized in the course of demining operations on the freed territories of the Russian Federation in the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions," he said.
"Besides Soviet-made engineering munitions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are mining the terrain and socially significant facilities with anti-tank mines made in the United States, Germany and Estonia, and dual-use cluster munitions, including those delivered by U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles," Stavitsky said.
The Engineering Forces have built over 4,700 kilometers of trenches and communication passages, more than 57,00 dugouts and 2,600 kilometers of anti-tank ditches, more than 13,000 prefabricated reinforced concrete structures, and 1.7 million pyramid-type fortifications in the special military operation zone, he said.
"Five sapper regiments were rapidly formed amid the special military operation to provide engineering equipment of defense lines," Stavitsky said.