Ben Remfrey has spent the past 10 months training Ukrainians to defuse unexploded Russian ordnance and will continue in 2023.
Ben Remfrey set up the Mines Awareness Trust in 1999 and is now the founder and MD of a company that trains people to survey and defuse unexploded bombs, mines and rockets.
He operates out of a base in Kosovo and in 2022 trained Ukrainians both there, and in Ukraine itself.
"We've been providing training to Ukrainian national government agencies which include state emergency services, the Ministry of Defence, the National Guard, Special Transport Service and recently, the Police Explosive Ordnance Disposal units."
He says Ukraine is littered with unexploded Russian ordnance:
"Ukraine is probably now the most contaminated country on the planet from unexploded ordnance. Generally in conflict, 15% of everything fired or dropped fails to function by design. In Ukraine, it's 60% of Russian munitions that have failed to function and that's down to poor manufacture or long storage periods."
Ben is training people who've never tackled unexploded bombs before, and those with some expertise in the area:
"We're training people to what we call International Mine Action Standards."
In the field, there's a standard procedure for dealing with unexploded ammunition:
"The very first step needs to be surveying and ascertaining exactly where the ordnance is, and what type, so that measures can be taken to clear those areas and return them to the communities."
Robots can be used to clear IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices, but Ben says humans are better at defusing standard ammunition:
"There's nothing better than a man or woman that has been trained well and has good manual equipment. But they should be supported by vegetation clearance and mechanical clearance assets, or even canine sniffer assets."
Ben returns to his training work with Ukrainian agencies soon.
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