MOSCOW, February 26 (AVN) - A humaintarian mine clearance detachment of the Emegegencies Ministry will leave for the Kosovo capital Pristina on Wednesday, a ministry spokesman told the Military News Agency.
The detachment comprises 24 sappers and eight sniffer dogs will work in Kosovo at the order from the UN Mine Action Co-ordination Centre. Russian specialists' first area of responsibility will be near the the Vitina village in the east of Kosovo. According to John Flanagan, the centre's programme manager, later Russian sappers will operate near the Albanian border. They will stay in Kosovo for about six months.
Russian sappers defused more than 2,000 explosive devices during their first mission at the order of the UN Mine Action C-ordination Centre in 1999. Next year, 22 sappers of the ministry checked a total of 36 minefields with the area of more than 155,000 square meters and defused 2,480 mines of various origin and calibre mainly produced in Yugoslavia. This was the absolute record among 16 sapper units of various countries that participated in the centre's mine disposal programme.