In Ukraine, 156K square kilometers are potentially mined

This was announced at a briefing at the Ukraine Media Center by Serhiy Reva, head of the Humanitarian Demining Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Ukrinform reported.

"Thanks to the joint efforts of the Defense Forces and mine action operators, according to the National Mine Action Authority, last year we managed to reduce from 174,000 square kilometers to 156,000, which are currently assessed as potentially dangerous and require inspection and demining," he said.

According to him, the factors that affect the demining of territories include hostilities, the density and complexity of explosive ordnance contamination (EOC) in the de-occupied territories, etc.

The SES has identified several key areas of demining development. These include the creation of an effective system of measures to prevent deaths from EOC; increasing the number of pyrotechnic units, establishing regional mine action operators in each region; and introducing advanced demining technologies.

In addition, it is about equipping pyrotechnic units of the SES with modern models of machinery and equipment, digital transformation of management processes in mine action, involvement of foreign and domestic companies in demining activities and coordination of their activities.

Reva noted that the State Emergency Service pays special attention to educating the public on mine safety. Since the beginning of the full-scale war with Russia, rescuers have conducted more than 33 thousand relevant activities, which reached almost 1.1 million people.

One of the priorities of the rescue service is to inform children, especially those of school age, about safety rules and behavior in case of detection of an unexploded ordnance. "To reach a larger number of people, especially those living in hard-to-reach de-occupied settlements, we have created 13 mobile mine safety classes," Reva said.

As reported, 18.500 hectares of forest remain mined in Chernihiv and Sumy regions.