The first stage of humanitarian demining of agricultural land in Ukraine started in Mykolayiv Oblast

Last week, during the meeting of the Interdepartmental Working Group on Humanitarian Demining under the chairmanship of the First Vice Prime Minister - Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Svyridenko, it became known that priority demining of agricultural land has begun in the Mykolaiv region.

Currently, significant forces from the engineering and sapper units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, pyrotechnic units of the State Emergency Service, and foreign operators are being deployed to this region. Yes, only the Ministry of Defense has 11 demining groups working in the region, starting next week 9 more groups will join them. There are 7 groups working from the State Emergency Service in the region.

According to Yulia Svyridenko, the analysis of the pace of work in the Mykolayiv region, the needs and issues that arise during the survey and clearing of the territory will help to optimize the process of demining agricultural lands in other regions as well. She also emphasized the need to accelerate the resolution of already identified problems.

"We must do everything possible to quickly resolve issues related to the organization of planned humanitarian demining. It is about creating a register of areas to be cleaned, tools for communication and control. We will involve foreign and domestic operators to speed up demining work. The priority is demining of agricultural land," Yuliya Svyridenko emphasized.

We note that, according to preliminary estimates, in 9 regions of Ukraine (Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernihiv and Cherkasy) more than 470,854 hectares of agricultural land need to be surveyed and, if necessary, demined (humanitarian demining). Therefore, based on the results of a non-technical or technical survey, the territory requiring humanitarian demining can be significantly reduced. First of all, survey and demining measures will be carried out in regions where the problem of land contamination is the most urgent, and the clearing of agricultural land is the most economically justified.

According to the criteria specified in the plan, the density of pollution, which affects the time required for surveying and cleaning the territories, is divided into categories:
low - territories where no hostilities were conducted, but there is a possibility of detecting explosive objects;
medium — de-occupied territories that fell into the zone of constant shelling, where military formations carried out their activities and where there is a high probability of detecting explosive objects;
high - territories near the combat contact line for which there is information about installed minefields and the use of remote demining means.

Information on agricultural land by pollution density and categories of economic feasibility is prepared by territorial communities and submitted to the regional military administration.