Ukraine develops home made demining machine to blow up Russian mines

Ukrainian volunteers have joined up with the army to morph a standard excavator into an efficient demining machine which they put to the test on Saturday (August 12) saying it will blow up any and all type of mine. Modern demining vehicles are rare in Ukraine and the team developed this machine much in the same way as the World War II M4 Sherman tank which was fitted with flails. Speaking from a testing field near the southern industrial city of Kryvyi Rih, engineer Vitalii, a 50-year-old who did not give his full name for security reasons, said he was totally confident that the specially mounted excavator which has an armoured shield to contain the blast, will destroy all the mines in its path. Instead of flails this excavator is fitted with chains around the rotating axis which Vitalii believes can hit to the power of one ton. Military demining expert Volodymyr Ozoryan said the team still had to check whether the driver's cabin, equipped with steel plates, would withstand an explosion under the tracks. Alternatively, a remote driver can control the excavator with a joystick.