Kosovo harnesses legacy of war to train Ukrainians to clear mines
By Fatos Bytyci
PEJA, Kosovo (Reuters) - Dressed in body armour and a protective visor, Iryna Kustovska slowly sweeps a metal detector across a patch of grass in search of a buried fake landmine as her machine emits high-pitched squeaks.
The 38-year-old civil aviation administrator from Kiev is in Kovoso, where she is training to be a deminer before returning home to participate in the huge task of removing mines and other explosive ordnance left scattered across Ukraine during Russia's invasion.
"There are different ways to help your country and I picked this one....so it's a drastic change in my life," she told Reuters.
Kustovska and 12 other Ukrainians, a mix of civilian and military personnel, are on a four-week advanced course being run by local trainers who participated in clearing tens of thousands of mines and cluster bombs left by departing Serb forces and unexploded devices from NATO airplanes.
The scale of that task pales against what probably awaits Kustovska and her fellow trainees in Ukraine.
Army and government officials there say all areas retaken after Russian occupation have been planted with mines, and Prime Minister Denys Shmygal estimates that, in all, more than 300,000 sq km (115,000 sq miles) of territory will have to be cleared.
"The war in Ukraine is intensifying but also there is a big need to clear unexploded devices," said trainer Hekuran Dula.
He works for the Mines Awareness Trust (MAT), a school that trains hundreds of cadets from around the world as deminers each year, having cleared mines in Kosovo and other countries including Iraq, Mozambique and Libya.
The mines Russia has planted in Ukraine are similar to those deployed in the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, Dula said, giving him a head start in terms of training.
"The plan is to train as many people as possible to turn Ukraine into a safe place to live," he said.
(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; additional reporting by Natalia Zinets; editing by John Stonestreet)
