Last week, 5,431 hectares of agricultural areas were surveyed as part of the Action Plan for the Demining of Agricultural Land. This information was announced at a meeting of the Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining, chaired by Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the year, units of the State Emergency Service, the Ministry of Defence, the State Special Transport Service and non-governmental operators have surveyed a total of 67,197 hectares.

“We are working at a good pace to clear agricultural land of mines and shells, as demonstrated by our deminers in the fields. That is why the Interagency Working Group on Humanitarian Demining is working on a number of issues that will help speed up demining in Ukraine,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

In particular, the meeting of the IWG on Humanitarian Demining focused on the functioning of the Humanitarian Mine Action Centre, a budgetary body established by the Government to coordinate humanitarian demining. The members of the IWG were also briefed on the progress of implementation of the monitoring tool for reporting on the weekly status of demining.

Among the issues discussed by the Interagency Working Group were simplification of selection criteria and procedures for including business entities in the list of mine action operators, as well as solutions to improve the efficiency of non-state operators.

Particular attention was paid to the technical equipment of mine clearance units.

“Ukraine needs mine clearance vehicles. To date, leading manufacturers of such equipment from a number of countries have responded to our call. We need to quickly work out and propose mechanisms for cooperation with them. There are various options, including those involving international donors. The main thing is to get the equipment and put it into operation as soon as possible,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

The First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Economy of Ukraine also stressed the need to speed up the assessment of the relevant capabilities of domestic producers.

As a reminder, the Action Plan for the Demining of Agricultural Land developed by the Interagency Working Group provides for the priority survey and demining of more than 470,000 hectares of land in 9 regions of the country. To date, the areas identified in the priority action plan have been fully surveyed in Cherkasy, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia regions. Work is ongoing in other regions. The focus is on demining agricultural land in Mykolaiv and Kherson regions.