Svyrydenko said how many kilometers of territory Ukraine demined.

Ukraine cleared 35,000 km² of mines and explosive devices

Since 2022, Ukraine has surveyed and cleared 35,000 sq. km of territory of mines and explosive devices.

This was reported by the First Vice Prime Minister - Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko at the opening of the Conference on Mine Action in Ukraine UMAC 2024 in Lausanne.

"As of 2022, 174,000 square kilometers were potentially mined. Of these, to date, our sappers have surveyed and returned to safe use for people 35,000 km². These impressive results impact not only Ukrainians but also global food security. Ukraine is now among the top ten wheat producers in the world. Ukrainian grain is imported by 57 countries. Therefore, issues of food security are one of the key elements of President Volodymyr Zelensky's Peace Formula," noted Yuliia Svyrydenko.

According to her, at the beginning of 2023, Ukraine did not have heavy equipment for demining, only six demining operators and 1,500 sappers. Thanks to the joint efforts of Ukraine and its partners today:

• 98 mechanical demining machines and over 4,300 sappers are working in the fields;
• 58 operators are certified, and another 57 are in the process of certification.

To help farmers with demining agricultural lands, the government has introduced a mechanism for 100% reimbursement of demining services at the expense of the state budget. To speed up and reduce the cost of clearing territories, the government has launched a market for humanitarian demining services. 24 tenders have already been announced in the Prozorro system, and the first successful procurements have taken place. As a result of the tenders, the cost of demining has decreased by 18%.

Work is also underway on the development of equipment and machinery for demining.

The Minister reported that machines for preparing soil for demining are being created in Kharkiv. These machines are already working in the fields. The Lviv company Rover Tech has certified a machine called "Snake," which can survey up to 2.5 hectares of land per day. Localization is also ongoing. Today, of the 45 Croatian DOK-ING mechanical demining machines operating in our country, 8 were produced in Ukraine.