About 470,000 ha of agricultural lands require demining in Ukraine – State Emergency Service

The relevant statement was made by Head of the Department for Organizational Work on Humanitarian Demining at the Ukrainian State Emergency Service Serhii Reva during a nationwide telethon, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“Last year, we already carried out mine clearance operations within agricultural lands in the de-occupied areas. These were such regions as Kyiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv. We managed to clear about 50,000 hectares in total and, thus, ensured the autumn field campaign, both in terms of harvesting and sowing. This year, we continue demining efforts within agricultural lands. In view of huge areas that need to be cleared, we have developed a plan for the humanitarian demining of agricultural lands, which was approved at a meeting of the National Mine Action Authority, and this plan determined about 470,000 hectares that require demining actions across nine regions,” Reva told.

In his words, it is difficult to say how long the process of demining will take, since it is not completely clear “what exactly is in these fields, what is the condition of their demining, and the density of demining”.

According to Reva, local government bodies and regional military administration are classifying these fields  by economic feasibility and contamination density. Today, about 174,000 hectares require urgent demining actions.

Reva mentioned that the most challenging situation is in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, which had been under Russian occupation for a long period of time.