Demining of Ukrainian lands may continue until the end of the century

It may take up to 70 years and significant help from partners to clear the territory of Ukraine. The relevant statement of the Minister of Economy of Ukraine, Yulia Svyridenko, is provided by the press service of the Ministry of Economy.

"Given the scale of pollution, demining will take 70 years with the resources currently available in Ukraine. Therefore, in order to solve this problem in the shortest possible time, we need strong support from international partners — financial, technological, and organizational," the government official believes.

Also, during a meeting with a member of the Canadian parliament, Heather McPherson, she noted that in order to coordinate efforts to demine territories, it is necessary to create an analogue of the defense "Ramstein".

As previously reported, the Government has already formed an Interdepartmental Working Group on Humanitarian Demining. The main task of the group will be the coordination of all authorities, as well as the actual definition of the strategy and road map. The working group was headed by First Vice Prime Minister — Minister of Economy Yuliya Svyridenko. It was also decided to create a Center for Humanitarian Demining, which will enable a systematic approach to solving the problem.

Currently, communities in 10 regions of Ukraine are most in need of demining. The relevant information was provided to the State Emergency Service. In general, about 30% of the entire area of the state is currently polluted. However, according to the estimates of foreign experts, currently more than 40% of the territory of Ukraine is contaminated by mines, therefore it is considered the most mined country in the world.

"The pollution is huge. It's not even comparable, I would say, to Syria or Afghanistan. It's really massive," Kateryna Templeton, an expert at the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), told Sky News in an interview.

Similar figures are given in Ukraine.

"We are talking about 5 million hectares of agrarian land that need to be examined and may be contaminated," said the chairman of the Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy Oleksandr Haydu.

According to him, Ukraine involves international organizations for faster demining. In particular, representatives of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) plan to allocate about 50 million USD for the purchase of mechanized demining equipment and the training of operators of such equipment in 2023. They will be used to clean Ukrainian territories contaminated with explosive objects.

It is already known that after the end of the war in Ukraine, it is possible to launch a minefield identification project. Drones can help with this. Eric Tollefsen, the head of the civil population protection department at the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Babel about this.

"This is an interesting project, but I will say right away that we cannot implement it in Ukraine yet - we do not use drones here during the war, because they are used by the participants in the conflict. This project can be launched after the end of the war, it is inexpensive," he said.

The expert explained that during the day the sun heats the earth, and when it sets, mines work like batteries because they give off heat more slowly. Then drones with thermal sensors in the air can see where the territory is mined and where it is clean. This data can be plotted on the corresponding map.