Engineer battalions are 70% staffed by specialists

The formed engineer battalions have already acquired 70% of the personnel. This was announced by the First Deputy Minister of Defense Alexander Pavlyuk at the Demine Ukraine Forum, reports Ukrinform.

“First of all, we solve two issues: we form new units that carry out these tasks, and we attract people who are at war and can no longer actively participate in battles, but want to be useful in state, as future operators of humanitarian demining. We are training them, a third are already conducting combat missions in this direction. The rest are receiving relevant knowledge. Our centers are overflowing with people studying business it. Because demining involves trained people, trained sappers,” said Pavlyuk.

According to the deputy minister, new mine clearance technologies are also being studied – from drones to modern equipment, but the main factor is the number of trained specialists.

Pavlyuk added that it will be possible to fully assess the scale of the occupation and the threat of mining only after the liberation of the Ukrainian territories.

“We can compare the threat we have today with the threat that followed the Second World War. The enemy used everything he had, from his reserves, perhaps from the warehouses of the Second World War, to the latest technologies. The land of Ukraine is contaminated with everything – from mines of all production, to shells, to cluster munitions, to phosphorus ammunition. Therefore, in many issues, only combat sappers can work there, ” stressed the deputy minister.

It was previously reported that private companies will receive permits to clean mines in Ukraine.