Garbage from the flooded Kherson region reached the Odessa coast: among it are a wide variety of mines, including anti-personnel

Undermining the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station by Russian invaders, in addition to flooding a vast territory on both sides of the Dnieper and polluting the main river of Ukraine and part of the Black Sea, also carries another, deadly threat – mines.

Millions of tons of water from the Kakhovka reservoir washed away from the surface of the earth (mainly on the southern Left Bank, occupied by the Russians) vast minefields, with the help of which the invaders planned to stop the counteroffensive of the Defense Forces. We are talking about thousands of anti-personnel and anti-amphibious mines that were installed along the banks of the river and on the islands of its delta.

Garbage from the Kherson region in the Odessa Bay

Currents spread this muck throughout the northwestern region of the Black Sea. Today, the first deadly “gifts” reached the Odessa coast along with various garbage, among which even parts of residential buildings were seen. In particular, the sea threw an anchor river mine YRM onto the beach, designed to destroy landing craft. Judging by the photographs, she was cocked and could explode at any moment. Fortunately, the ammunition was noticed in time and alerted the military, who destroyed it.

Georgy Ak-Murza, a front-line correspondent for Dumskaya, talks about what other surprises the sea polluted by the enemy can bring to Odessans and residents of the region.

According to him, most of the mines washed away by water are various anti-personnel ammunition, mainly of the PMN type (“anti-personnel pressure mine), PMN-2, PMN-3 and PMN-4. All of them have a sealed plastic case and significant buoyancy, due to which such items are not recommended to be installed at the bottom of reservoirs – they should only be buried in the ground.

In addition, the Russians littered their minefields in abundance with small, also plastic PFM-1 and PFM-1s mines, nicknamed “petals” for their characteristic shape. Unlike PMN, which are buried in the ground, the petals are simply scattered over the surface – if a person steps on such an object, the explosion tears off the foot or the entire leg. According to combat standards, from 30 to 50 mines of the PMN type and up to 50 PFM can be installed on one square kilometer.

Considering that all PMN mines are buried only a few centimeters into the soil, then even a slight flooding of the territory washes them out, after which they float along with the stream. What it is fraught with, I think, it is not necessary to explain.

Special mention should be made of anti-amphibious mines like the one that washed ashore with us today. The occupiers installed a significant number of such things along the left bank of the Dnieper and the Kakhovka Sea. These are mines of the PDM type (“anti-amphibious mine”) and MNP (“zero buoyancy mine” – used by sabotage groups), as well as YRM. Usually they are placed at a shallow depth, attaching them to the anchor with minreps. In the event of a break in the minrep (i.e. cable), which happens quite often with much more massive sea mines, they become buoyant, creating a danger to anyone who may come into contact with them.

The diameter of the anti-personnel PMN is only 11 cm, the weight is 550 grams. Antiamphibious ones are larger and heavier (NRM, for example, weighs 13 kg), but they can also overcome breakwaters. It is possible that a certain number of “guests” have already got into the bathing areas of Odessa beaches, entangled in algae or bogged down in the sand.

And if earlier Odessa lovers of water procedures were threatened only by sea mines, now the situation is much worse, which is confirmed by the military authorities, who have declared an increased level of mine danger along the banks of the Dnieper, the Dnieper-Bug estuary and the entire Black Sea coast of Odessa and Nikolaev regions.

In addition, like large sea mines, anti-amphibious mines, when detonated, generate a rather powerful water hammer – like the one used by poachers to kill fish. In other words, their undermining is also dangerous for a person who is at a distance, and the radius of damage is difficult to predict, it depends on many factors.

Conclusion: you should forget about swimming and, indeed, about visiting beaches in the near future. Don’t put yourself in danger!

Author – Georgy Ak-Murza

PS VII The 1907 Hague Convention on the Laying of Underwater, Automatically Exploding Mines expressly prohibits “the laying of anchored, automatically explosive contact mines which are not rendered safe as soon as they break from their minreply”.
DEATH TO THE RUSSIAN OCCUPANTS!