KRASNOARMEYSK, Russia (AP) - New Russian technology can help significantly reduce the world's stockpiles of deadly anti-personnel land mines, Russian officials and experts said Tuesday.
"This technology can be used for the most dangerous types of mines, ones that are decaying and prone to unexpected explosions," said Vladimir Korenkov of the Mine Action and Ammunition Center, which organized a demonstration at a military firing range in Krasnoarmeysk, just outside Moscow.
The technique is geared toward a Soviet-era cluster bomb, the KSF-1, which reached the end of its life cycle two years ago and is prone to corrosion and spontaneous detonation, Korenkov said. Each KSF-1 bomb is filled with 60 to 80 anti-personnel land mines.
To disable the bomb, crews drill small holes in its outer shell, being careful not to trigger the explosive mechanism, and inject a cementing agent which neutralizes the mines inside.
Korenkov said the new technique does not pollute or damage the environment, as with traditional disposal methods like burning or detonating. The mines, once disabled, are harmless but retain their explosive potential and can be reused for civilian purposes, like blasting holes in industrial mines, he added.
To drive home that point, military officers detonated a "disabled" mine next to an active one, to show that the "disabled" mine can still be made to explode.
"We can give a second life to these munitions, and use them for safe purposes," Korenkov said.
The new technology has not been put to use by international organizations, but Russian officials clearly hope to use it to play a bigger role in the global demining campaign. The Russian Mine Action Center is a private organization but has the support of officials in Russia's Defense Ministry.
Russia says it ended mine production years ago, and imposed a five-year moratorium on export of certain kinds of mines in 1997. But like the United States and China, Russia has not ratified the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel land mines, because it says it still needs mines for defensive purposes around sensitive military installations.