MOSCOW. Jan 21 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian engineer troops neutralized two million explosives in 2002, including those remaining from the WWII.
There is a down-trend in the number of the latter, although there is still much work to do with them, Colonel General Nikolai Serdtsev, chief of the Engineer Forces, said in an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda daily, published on Tuesday.
"Now the priority concern is explosions of ordnance depots. As a result of such emergencies, explosives are thrown far around, and then it takes real effort to clean the area," the general said.
Serdsov said his corps had much work to do in Chechnya as well.
"Our engineer teams check up to 200km of roads daily. All in all, more than 325,000 explosives have been neutralized within the whole anti-terrorist operation. Also a tough job is to lay roads for troops, especially in the mountains," he added.
The general said that new equipment had been scarce recently.
"To be more specific, in recent years we received new MTU-90 bridging vehicles, BMK-225 tower motor boats, EZM-SM electric module entanglements, UIIK sapper universal individual protection, as well as modern water supply, camouflage, simulation, and mine-sweeping assets. We have created new high- protection and ergonomic module shelters and dug-outs," Serdsov said.