Ukrainian Specialists Have Already Demined Almost 88,000 ha of Territories

The units of the State Emergency Service have already demined almost 88,000 hectares of the territory of Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, now Ukraine is on the list of the most contaminated countries in the world, and currently the territory contaminated with explosive objects is about 30%. This is 174,000 square kilometres,” Colonel Serhiy Reva, head of the humanitarian demining organisation department of the State Emergency Service, said.

He emphasised that these are only preliminary assessments that the Emergency Situations Service can make when military operations in the territory of Ukraine have not yet ended.

According to Reva, of all the mined territories, almost 13,500 sq km are water areas, the waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, of which about 7,300 km are already de-occupied territories.

The demining terms and process are affected by various factors, for example, the end of military operations, the density of demining of the territory, and the type of terrain.

“To date, the volumes performed by our units, compared to the period before the war, have increased tenfold. We have already defused more than 390,000 explosive objects, demined the territory of almost 88,000 ha,” Reva said.

He added that now the main efforts of the Service are focused on demining the de-occupied territories of the Kharkiv, Kherson, Donetsk, Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kyiv regions.

The colonel noted that the most difficult situation remains in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions because they were under enemy occupation the longest.

Settlements, roads, and critical infrastructure objects remain the priority in demining for the State Emergency Service, and only then will underwater demining be carried out.

Bohdan Marusyak