Ukraine's partners provide additional USD 70M to support demining
According to Ukrinform, this was reported by the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine.
“A year ago, together with our partners, we met at a demining forum in Zagreb, Croatia. Back then, we had 18 operators, about 3,000 sappers and 32 demining vehicles. Today, 58 operators have been certified, the number of deminers has grown to more than 4,000, and 98 demining machines are working in the fields,” said Yulia Svyrydenko, First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine.
In particular, Luxembourg has allocated USD 13 million, Norway USD 20 million, the Netherlands USD 10.8 million, and Canada USD 24.5 million.
Latvia will provide more than 270,000 euros, which will be received by the international organization HALO Trust, whose specialists are working on de-mining in several regions of Ukraine affected by the fighting.
Switzerland, which hosts UMAC-2024, has announced the allocation of 30 million Swiss francs for one of the Swiss Mine Action Fund's projects.
In addition, Switzerland and the United Kingdom will fund a three-month pilot project in Kharkiv region that will use Palantir technology to identify priority demining areas based on big data analysis.
The total contribution of the partners to humanitarian demining since 2022 is USD 1 billion 70 million.
The final document committing to support humanitarian demining in Ukraine was signed by 42 countries. One of its key points is that mine action should remain on the international agenda.
As Ukrinform reported, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation handed over a heavy demining machine GCS-200 to Ukraine during the Conference on Mine Action in Ukraine (UMAC-2024), and two more will be delivered by the end of 2024.
