On June 11, a 50-year-old man entered the calm waters of a beach in the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Every weekend during the summer, he would dive into the shallow sea and look for sea snails, a local delicacy.
But in this case he was not to return. A mine exploded, killing him instantly as his family watched in horror.
The Black Sea is littered with hundreds of mines dropped by both sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine, posing a serious threat to people and the reopening of grain shipping routes halted by Moscow’s naval blockade.
“It’s really a big problem,” said Vladlen Tobak, a former Ukrainian navy diving instructor and founder of a diving school in Odessa. “These mines are up there with other unexploded devices from the Second World War that we continue to find. The main concern is that we do not know how many mines were dropped during the naval blockade. It will take a long time to clear the waters from these devices.
Kyiv and Moscow blame each other for dropping mines in the Black Sea. The extent of the mining operations remains unknown, but Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa regional military administration, says between 400 and 600 mines have been dropped into Ukraine’s maritime zone by Russia.
In March, Russia’s defense ministry and state security agency, the FSB, warned against “floating Ukrainian mines off the coast of Odessa,” which reportedly sank after a storm. According to Moscow, the Russian military has mapped about 370 Ukrainian sea mines.
People swim in the sea near Odessa, where the Ukrainian government has banned coastal bathing. Photo: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian
Sea mines, designed to explode when a ship’s hull comes into contact with them, are anchored to a steel cable to hold them underwater. However, they can become loose in storms and be carried long distances by ocean currents.
Sea mines are not banned by international agreements, unlike land mines. However, international humanitarian law prescribes certain rules. For example, states can place them in their territorial waters to protect their coasts from external attacks. The Hague Convention prohibits the use of floating mines in international waters.
In June, Ukraine admitted publicly that it had “installed sea mines in exercise of our right of self-defense as provided for in Article 51 of the UN Charter.” The government simultaneously banned beach bathing. But with temperatures reaching 35C (95F), many people are flouting the restrictions and flocking to the beach.
Roman Kostenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament and commander of Ukrainian special forces, confirmed to the Guardian: “We mined the coast and some areas closer to the coast to prevent a Russian invasion by water. However, we do not know the exact size and location of the Russian mines.
The presence of sea mines also poses a serious threat to other countries bordering the Black Sea. Bulgarian officials have warned citizens living near the coast to be aware of mines, while Romania works to dispose of devices found in its waters, according to reports. As for Turkey, at least two mines appear to have washed ashore, prompting Ankara to discuss the issue with Moscow and Kyiv.
On Friday, a floating anti-ship mine was washed ashore in the Odesa region, the press service of the Ukrainian Navy reported. “The Defense Forces discovered another floating anti-ship mine in the Black Sea near the coast in the Odesa region. The dangerous discovery was quickly neutralized by a naval unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” says Facebook.
Ukrainian lawmaker Roman Kostenko said he had only the outlines of a plan to clear the Black Sea. Photo: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian
At least two Ukrainians have been killed in sea mine explosions in recent weeks. “It’s not about the shock wave itself,” said Oleg Solokha, a former Ukrainian military diver. “When a mine explodes, even if you’re not very close to it, you can lose consciousness or get dizzy. You lose your spatial orientation and your mind does not understand where is up and where is down. It’s very dangerous. You can easily drown because of it.
It is not yet clear what type of mines are floating in the Black Sea. A Ukrainian foreign ministry official told Reuters in March that 372 sea mines laid by Russia were of the “R-421-75” type, which were neither registered nor used by the Ukrainian navy.
“There are different types of sea mines,” Soloha said. “There are contact mines and magnetic mines and modifications of those with vibration sensors. 99% of the time we just detonate the mines because the older trinitrotoluene in the mine becomes unstable over time and can detonate on its own. Another reason they are detonated is that the activators (mine spikes) cannot be turned off if the mine stays in the water too long.
With changing tides and storms, the destruction of mooring devices complicates mine clearance efforts. Experts agree that demining the Black Sea could take years, and any attempt to do so would be the largest since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Ukrainian official said authorities were planning demining using robots, but it would be months before it could be put into action. Kostenko confirmed the existence of a demining plan, but said for now it was nothing more than a scheme.
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