Ukraine needs approximately 10,000 sappers to de-mine territories contaminated by Russian mines and explosive remnants in a short period of time. This was announced by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal during a press conference on September 10.
“Ukrainian farmers use more than 150,000 hectares of agricultural land, which were demined by our sappers, mine action operators. This work will continue. Now we have 53 mine action operators, about 3 thousand sappers. According to expert calculations, Ukraine needs about 10 thousand sappers for that in order to clear Ukrainian lands contaminated by Russian mines and explosive debris in a short period of time, up to 5 years”, said the head of the government.
He emphasized that humanitarian demining is an important area that is actively developing.
“We have already formed the market, we compensate farmers 100% for the demining service. Thanks to the involvement of non-state operators, this whole process is many times faster, next year we should reach a very good pace”– assured the Prime Minister.
Shmyhal also reported that the number of special machines for demining is constantly increasing.
“Before the start of the full-scale invasion, there was not a single demining machine in Ukraine. Now there are about a hundred of them. We plan to have 200 of them”, – said the head of the government.
As a reminder, on September 7, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine opened the Mine Action Office, which will coordinate demining, certification of operators, and quality control of the work performed.
