Very dangerous ball bombs continue to be defused in Sumy Region

Last week, Russian aircraft bombed a number of settlements on the territory of Shostkinsky District. The Russians used RBK-500 cluster bombs during the airstrikes. One such cartridge contains 565 SHOAB-0.5 ball bombs, weighing 417 grams each and having a large area of damage. When ejected from the bomb cartridge, the bombs, which look like small silver spheres about the size of a tennis ball, fly over a large area and explode on contact with the surface, trees and objects, affecting all living things in the vicinity.

“Some of the ball aerial bombs fail and get stuck in the ground, or remain on the surface of the soil. In this case, specialists of the Department of Explosive Service of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Sumy Region go to the places of events and carry out demining of the territory, using metal detectors to detect these explosive objects. When such a silver ball, which did not immediately explode, lies somewhere in the grass, it can attract people’s attention, there may be a desire to come closer to it, take it in your hands to look around. It is categorically impossible to do this, because there is a danger of explosion. Under the aluminum case, there are more than three hundred ready-made fragments, in the form of steel balls with a diameter of 5.5 mm and 70 grams of explosives,” says Ihor Chernyak, head of the explosives department of the National Police Headquarters in the Sumy region.