Demining on the steppe - and the thorny issue of the landmine ban
- Jen Stout
- Sep 15
- 2 min read
In late July I spent a few days in southern Ukraine with the Mines Advisory Group, an NGO based in Manchester which has been demining conflict zones, and campaigning to end the use of anti-personnel mines, since 1989.
They have a huge staff of Ukrainian deminers working in deoccupied territories - places where the Russian army were pushed back, leaving a devastated landscape of ruined buildings and missing people. And lots of mines and unexploded ordnance.
It was hot in late July - up to 34*C - and these guys work out on the open steppe, a beautiful landscape of golden fields, blue skies, flat and vast and wide. But it's boiling in a demining suit, and visor, and it is tough work. I'm not sure I could do it, and have huge respect for these guys - some of them just 19 or 20. I got to spend a lot of time with them, seeing everything from the training process to an active minefield, watching different methods - Apopo sniffer dogs, large and small metal detectors, a robotic grass-cutting machine, and hands-and-knees inch-by-inch scraping with tools. I was able to speak to lots of deminers about their motivations in signing up for such a challenging job, their feelings on land mines and treaties and the war generally - so I was glad to have the space to describe all this at length and to include many of these conversations in the article.
The Russian army has made extensive use of landmines, both anti-personnel and anti-tank. It's one of the reasons that the 2023 counteroffensive didn't succeed. The international landmine ban, or Ottawa Treaty, prohibits the use of the latter, but Russia never signed it. Ukraine did, though. Now, along with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, and Estonia, they're leaving the treaty.
In this long read for Prospect magazine, I've written about the realities of demining in Ukraine, and the reasons why these countries, directly threatened by Russia, might feel they have no
option but to withdraw from the treaty. It's easy for us to judge from safety, but we should make sure we're actually listening to the people defending Europe, too. For those who've dedicated their lives to banning these weapons, though, it's very difficult to watch all these withdrawals - and hard not to wonder if other states will follow suit.
The piece is illustrated with Julia Kochetova's incredible photographs. I really admire Julia and it was so exciting to work with her briefly. She won the World Press Photo open format last year for this project - very deservedly.
I'll add some of my own snaps below, but please do go to Prospect to read the full thing - or better yet, the print magazine is in the newstands now. I think it's an excellent mag, which values long-form reporting (vanishingly rare these days), and they have a 30% off subscription offer just now.
More of this to come in the next few months: I'm finishing up the book talks and getting back to full-time reporting. Can't wait.
