As of February 2022, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, 30% of Ukraine's territory was contaminated with explosives. This area is equivalent to two Austrias. Therefore, humanitarian demining of the liberated territories of Ukraine is becoming a key prerequisite for the return of the population and the resumption of economic activity in the affected regions. The presence of explosive ordnance poses the greatest threat to the lives of local residents and dramatically reduces the attractiveness of the areas for business and investment.
Before the full-scale invasion
Before 2014, Ukraine grappled with the lingering aftermath of mine contamination and unexploded ordnance, primarily stemming from intense conflicts between German and Soviet forces during World War II, as well as combat activities in the First World War. In the mid-1970s, engineering units under the Ministry of Defenиe took partial measures to clear affected regions, hinting at the possibility of remaining hazards. However, the precise whereabouts and scope of any ongoing mine-related risks remain uncertain.
According to MAG, in the six years between 2014 and 2020 there were 1,190 mine-related casualties in Ukraine. Between 24 February, 2022 and 10 January, 2023 - less than one year - there have been 611 known mine-related casualties.
In 2017, Ukraine estimated that total contamination by mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) could extend over 7,000 sq km. At the same time, official bodies of Ukraine indicated that nationwide non-technical and technical survey could only be possible once its sovereignty has been fully restored over all territory under its jurisdiction.
Both DRC’s and HALO Trust’s non-technical teams continued surveys throughout 2021 to determine the actual extent of contamination more accurately. DRC’s teams identified 24 new polygons of a total size of 22 sq km of anti-personnel mine contamination. DRC also resurveyed some areas due to the extended period of time since the initial survey and as these areas were being cultivated by farmers. Survey and clearance by The HALO Trust on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the buffer zone in 2021 confirmed the presence of a combination of anti-personnel mines, cluster munition remnants (CMR), and other ERW.
A total area of 3.7 sq km across 34 confirmed hazardous areas (CHA) and 1 SHA of previously unrecorded anti-personnel mined area was discovered by HALO Trust and added to the database in 2021. Of these areas, 34 contained a mix of explosive ordnance while the remaining area contained only anti-personnel mines. According to information collected during the survey, the mines were laid during the peak of the 2014–15 conflict.
The HALO Trust has also reported having encountered improvised explosive devices (IEDs), some of which are victim-activated, during clearance or explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) call-outs in 2020 and 2021.
According to the United Nations research, as of 2021, Around 2 million people in Ukraine were exposed to the threat of landmines and explosive remnants of war in eastern Ukraine on both controlled and temporary occupied territories.
Situation After Invasion
In March 2023, The Ministry of Agriculture Policy of Ukraine stated that it expects 30-40% of agricultural land in Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Kherson regions to be cleared by May. The Ministry of Economy of Ukraine claimed that mine clearance of Ukrainian territory may take up to 70 years.
As of January 2023, Ukrainian Emergency Service together with other demining units has cleared more than 320,000 mines since the beginning of the full-scale war. The head of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said that at some point they were neutralizing more than 2,500 explosive devices a day only in Kharkiv oblast, which was ‘extremely impressive for the Western partners’. In Summary, Ukrainian pyrotechnicians have already made more than 45 thousand field trips.
International human rights organizations have repeatedly pointed to the indiscriminate mining of Ukrainian territory. Among other things, this concerned the use of remote mines, as well as the mining of civilian objects. Amnesty International has reported that, between March and April 2022, Russian forces fired rockets to disperse PTM-1S scatterable mines on residential neighbourhoods in Kharkiv killing at least three civilians. This type of attack combines the attributes of cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented use of at least seven types of anti-personnel mines (MON-50, MON-100, OZM-72, PMN-4, POM-2/POM-2R, and POM-3), in at least four of Ukraine’s 24 regions: Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Sumy. All manner of delivery methods have been documented: hand-emplaced, mechanically-laid, and remotely delivered. Russian forces have also emplaced many victim-activated booby traps as they retreated from positions taken during the initial phase of the invasion, a considerable portion of which are anti-personnel mines under the APMBC. In mid-April 2022, Ukrainian police and emergency services distributed numerous images of victim-activated booby-traps, including hand grenades with an attached trip wire, and booby-traps placed on dead bodies.
MON-50 (МОН-50) anti-personnel mine
Most anti-personnel mines found in Ukraine are bounding mines, such as the OZM series; directional fragmentation mines, such as the MON-50; and fragmentation stake mines, such as the POMZ. According to the Heinrich Boell Foundation, despite the initially planned primary impact of the weaponry (to injure, not kill, military opponents with a view to inflicting additional logistical and medical burdens), up to 80% of all casualties from anti-personnel mines occur among civilians.
In order to protect the population from the risks associated with mine danger in Ukraine, an interactive map of the territories that could potentially be contaminated with explosives was created by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in cooperation with other bodies and international organizations. The map shows the places where explosive hazards have already been found or are likely to be found, and the degree of threat from them according to the information available to the SES.
How does demeaning work?
The demining process is divided into several stages, the sequence and coherence of which affect the safety and security of the territories. The Department of Environmental Safety and Mine Action of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine provides a detailed protocol for demining.
The first stage is a rapid response after artillery, missile and air strikes, after incidents with unexploded ordnance, to find and destroy unexploded ordnance and their remnants, and to ensure the procedural actions of law enforcement agencies.
The second stage is to conduct an operational response to search for, detect, destroy (neutralize) explosive objects in the liberated territories to unblock the functioning of life support facilities, transport infrastructure and public access to social facilities and housing.
The third stage is to ensure the safety of agricultural operations, which includes the operational search for explosive devices in designated agricultural areas.
The fourth stage is a non-technical survey as part of the land release algorithm in accordance with national and international mine action standards. The main purpose of this stage is to identify suspected contaminated and contaminated areas and to eliminate areas that may potentially contain ERW risks. Mine action operators are involved in this stage.
The fifth stage is humanitarian demining as part of the land release algorithm. It includes the procedure of reducing territories during technical survey, continuous clearance of territories by demining or clearing the area of hostilities. This stage is carried out by mine action operators under the monitoring of the National Mine Action Authority.
The sixth stage is external quality control of demining by inspection bodies. After successful external quality control, the mine action operator transfers responsibility for the territory to local authorities.
The first three stages are carried out by the forces:
demining groups of the State Special Transport Service
pyrotechnic units of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine
explosive groups of the National Police of Ukraine
engineering and sapper units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard of Ukraine
International and national non-governmental organizations that have been certified as mine action operators are involved in stages 4-6. The most well-known of them are:
The HALO Trust
The Danish Refugee Council in Ukraine
Swiss Foundation for Mine Action
Demining Solutions
GC Group
Ukroboronservice
As of April 4, 2023, nearly 350 demining teams are operating in Ukraine, involving Ukrainian and foreign specialists.
Limited human and technical resources are available for demining, both from the government and from international and private organizations. At the same time, the area of Ukraine's territories affected by Russia's full-scale invasion and in need of surveying is an extremely significant 160 thousand square kilometers (16 million hectares).
Therefore, the government, international partners and business should allocate more resources to the demining process. First of all, it is about expanding the capacities of specialized government agencies (Ministry of Defense, SES) as the most competent entities in this area, as well as attracting private investment and stimulating the emergence of a competitive market for demining services, in particular through various public-private partnership mechanisms.
An effective combination of public, private and international instruments can provide an inflow of resources, significantly speed up demining processes and, among other things, reduce their cost.
The cost of demining
An example is Mykolaiv region, where active hostilities also took place. About 14% of its territory, which is 3.44 thousand square kilometers, needs to be surveyed for explosive ordnance. This scale covers about 400 settlements in the region alone.
To conduct a non-technical survey of the entire region during the year, 15-20 teams are needed, taking into account various factors such as contamination, population density and accessibility of communities.
The contaminated area may include 138 square kilometers that need demining and 206 square kilometers that need to be cleared of the effects of hostilities. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, as a general rule, one day of fighting entails 30 days of demining the area where the fighting took place. The speed of demining will depend on various factors, including terrain and soil, and can range from manual demining to the use of heavy machinery.
This requires a significant number of deminers and resources, and experts estimate that it could take about 8 years to clear the area. The total cost of humanitarian demining, taking into account the average cost of these works at $3 per square meter (in 2016, the estimated figures were more like $5), could reach $1.2 billion.
According to Ukrainian economists from CASE Ukraine, the price of demining one square kilometer is from $3 million. Vasyl Povoroznyk, CASE Ukraine economist, notes that according to rough estimates, the "price fork" for demining the entire country will be from $400 billion to $900 billion. "To understand the problem, it costs about $2 to place one mine, and $1,000 to clear a shell," says Povoroznyk.
In the summer of 2022, the Military Food Project, which aggregates information for humanitarian mine clearance, gave a more conservative estimate of about US$5 billion. Now this amount is higher.
According to the Economichna Pravda outlet, throughout this year, 185 civilians were killed by landmines in Ukraine, and several hundred were injured. Ukraine is now one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world, and this problem is going to last decades.
But the threat to civilians suffering from the mine threat is only one part of the problem. Given the fact that the vast majority of the fighting has been or is taking place in the south and east of Ukraine, which are known for their significant share of Ukraine's agricultural sector, there is a significant risk to food security.
Share of wheat in arable land in Ukraine
More than 400 million people worldwide depend on food supplies from Ukraine. The war in Ukraine poses a threat to global food security, which is particularly acute today in some countries of the MENA region (Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Saudi Arabia) and Asian countries (Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan), which are the main buyers of wheat and corn on world markets. The problem of landmines will also affect the countries that buy Ukrainian products, due to significant complications in the security situation for Ukrainian agriculture.
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