The dissertation is devoted to the problem of psychological support of the professional activity of servicemen-sappers, who are performing tasks in combat conditions. It was found, that during the Joint Forces Operation the profession of sapper became of a vital necessity. The sappers do not only start and end the war, but, over the course of decades, have to eliminate its consequences. It has been identified that, from a psychological point of view, the fight against a hidden enemy, that is a mine, a tripwire mine, a homemade explosive device, is much worse for a serviceman than being involved in the open fighting. It was found out, that the psychological support of combat activity of servicemen-sappers is a complex aimed at the formation and maintenance of a high-level psychological readiness of the sappers, creation of favorable psychological conditions for the organized and precise identification of explosive objects and the demining of the mined area, the reduction of the minefield's impact on the psychological state of servicemen. It was shown that the profession of sapper requires not only hard professional training, but also specific character features, special internal self-control. The list of professionally important qualities of servicemen-sappers includes courage, critical attitude to one's self and own actions, analytical mind, excellent motor skills, intuition, high endurance and stress resistance, developed anticipation, ability to precisely assess the situation in the minefield, ability to predict the results of own actions. It was defined that the sapper should be able to make quick decisions, act for a long time alone, and regulate the feeling of fear in the most stressful situations in the minefield. A long presence of a serviceman in a minefield can often generate amine syndrome. It is important that after losing a sense of fear, the sapper should leave the profession. It was determined that psychological support of the professional activity of servicemen-sappers should be carried out on three levels: 1) general-social (state);2) service-social (departmental); 3) personal. A significant influence on the reliability and success of the professional activity of sappers is made by socio-psychological factors. The key role is played by the interpersonal relations, which depend on the commonality of interests and the individual-typological characteristics of the sappers. The results of the empirical study on the impact of the mental state of anxiety on the effectiveness of the combat demining task were fully defined. It was found that the intensity of anxiety during demining depends not only on the nature of the combat task, but also on the individual characteristics of the serviceman, the motives of his behavior, professional experience, knowledge, skills, features of the nervous system and emotional stability. It was found out, that the most proficient are sappers with a hyper-type and demonstrative type of accentuation of character. It was confirmed that fear constantly accompanies the professional activity of the sapper. Among the defined fears of the servicemen-sappers, the most intensive were the fears of becoming "disabled" (0.94), "fear of death" (0.88), "fear of being blown up on the mine" (0.84), "fear of performing a combat task on the irown (individual demining)" (0.75). It was proved that the intensity of certain factors of fear depends on the level of anxiety of the sappers, the motives of taking part in the United Nations peace-keeping operation and the Joint Forces operation, as well as the dominant character of accentuation. Psychological training "Minefield", which was created in the process of education of the servicemen-sappers, provided the development of the necessary psychomotor, sensory and intuitive skills to regulate the movements and actions in the course of the combat tasks in the minefield. The training "Minefield" has also triggered the development of constructive attitudes in the demining unit, mutual understanding and support to one another, reflexive listening, friendliness, benevolence, leadership and patience. The training exercises improved the vestibular apparatus of the sapper, the coordination of movements, spatial orientation, physical endurance, mental resilience and ingenuity. According to the results of the psychological training, soldier-sappers have improved their stress resistance, anticipation, they began to make quicker decisions in a minefield on their own. Key words: psychological support, sapper, mine, demining, minefield, fear, stress, anxiety, mental stress, psychological training of a sapper, explosive objects, combat task, accentuation of character, psychological assistance.
