In Ukraine, 174 thousand square meters remain potentially mined. km, the cleaning of which will require spending more than $37 billion.
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Prime Minister Denis Shmigal spoke about this at a forum dedicated to demining the territory of Ukraine (Demine Ukraine Forum), the Ukrinform agency reports.
The prime minister notes that the mines that Russia leaves behind are weapons of war that remain active long after de-occupation and cannot be disassembled by a civilian, a military person or a child.
Unfortunately, the enemy deliberately bypasses our cities and villages, our territories, forests and fields in order to inflict damage not only on the military, but also on thousands of civilians. Today, 174 thousand square meters remain potentially mined in Ukraine. km. This figure is already known to almost all of our partners. This is a huge territory, the demining of which could take a decade, and, according to some experts, hundreds of years, Szmigal noted.
According to him, Ukraine is not going to spend so much time on mine clearance, and hopes to do it in the next few years.
According to the World Bank, more than $37 billion will need to be spent on clearing mined areas, Szmigal noted.
He noted that these are all numbers and data as of today and based on those territories controlled by Ukraine.
And we understand that the situation in the occupied territories is getting worse every day. The problem is aggravated by Russia’s presence in the temporarily occupied territories. The longer the occupation, the more mines, missiles, unexploded shells, bombs. These are obvious things,” the head of government emphasized.
In addition, he added, the problem is extremely complex also because the enemy leaves behind a huge number of various dangerous objects that are not visible to metal detectors, or total mining of the habitats of civilians.
We have already seen, after the deoccupation of the Kiev, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions, how the enemy passes through houses, playgrounds, children’s toys, and furniture. They will simply go through everything in order to inflict as much harm and defeat on the Ukrainians as possible,” Szmigal emphasized.
According to the prime minister, some mines cannot be demined at all and must be destroyed right on the spot, and this complicates the demining process in general.
Szmigal emphasized that no country has faced such a challenge since World War II, so Ukraine cannot do without the help of partners.
The scale is huge. Of course, we need the help of our partners. We are creating appropriate institutions and infrastructure within our state,” the prime minister noted.
Shmygal’s page on the Facebook social network notes that Ukraine offers partners who come to this direction of rapid recovery:
- willingness to test the latest mine clearance technologies. Especially technologies for remote sensing of territories;
- creation and expansion of production. This is support for Ukrainian manufacturers of machinery and equipment and localization of production of foreign enterprises;
- creating a competitive mine clearance market First of all, a clear, understandable certification system for mine action operators;
- compensation for enterprises that will purchase mine clearance services through Prozorro auctions. A pilot auction has already taken place in the Zhytomyr region;
- attracting specialists for training. Today, Ukraine has about 3 thousand sappers, while the need is more than 10 thousand sappers.
According to Shmygal, currently almost 40 countries and partner organizations have agreed on the allocation of about $250 million, including for special equipment for humanitarian demining.
Source: Ukrinform, Denis Shmigal
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.