Ukraine is creating a system of large-scale humanitarian demining, for which there are no models in the world today

A crew of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine checking a spot around damaged electricity supply infrastructure before it can be repaired. Kharkiv oblast, Ukraine. Photo: Kateryna Pryshchepa

KATERYNA PRYSHCHEPA: The large-scale demining system is emerging in Ukraine in response to the challenges posed by the full-scale Russian invasion. Is it possible to outline the system at the moment? Has it been determined which institution in Ukraine is responsible for what components in this process?

IHOR BEZKARAVAYNYI: We are now entering a reform process that will shape the system to perform the functions expected of it. The system has been gradually created and changed since 2014, but now the scale of the tasks and challenges are much greater. The system was not ready for this. Over the past year, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have been working together to formulate requirements and a vision of what this system should be. Now the system is not stable enough. It still depends too much on specific individuals and their personal contribution. Our goal is to make it work systematically, regardless of the individuals involved.

Can we finally say there is a clear idea of what this system should look like?

At the moment, we have a rough understanding of how similar systems work in other countries. In some countries, these systems are more decentralized, in others, they are more centralized. We are now getting to know this experience and trying to use it to create something that will work in Ukraine.

Of course, we must have one institution or authority that will make decisions, and prioritize and decide which operators work where, with all of this based on data analysis. As of now, according to the law, the Ministry of Defence is the principal authority in time of war, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs is the principal authority in time of peace. This system is unbalanced. In addition, the problem lies in the definition of concepts. The Law on Mine Action speaks of demining and, in brackets, humanitarian demining. That is, our regulations, when talking about demining, mean only humanitarian demining. And this is an incorrect approach. There are different types of demining. There is operational demining, military demining, and humanitarian demining. Different institutions have different tasks. And when we talk about the leadership of the Ministry of Defence in this area, we have to keep in mind that the ministry is responsible for fighting the war that we have to win. And at the same time it also has a part of the responsibility for humanitarian demining, because according to the law, in a time of war the Ministry of Defence is the principal authority in the demining process. Therefore, it turns out that this body is responsible for civilian work, which leads to certain distortions. This is because the ministry has its own vision of the task, which stems from the needs of warfare.

When we talk about major international partners that support humanitarian demining, they focus on civilian structures or operators. In the area of humanitarian demining the Ministry of Defence has its own subordinated body – the State Service of Special Transport, which is ostensibly part of the military, but not entirely.

So when the demining operators discover the explosive devices, which service removes them?

There are several options. The operators can subcontract to an operator who has a permit for explosives removal and disposal; they can get a destruction permit; or they can call the government agency.

Is this institution the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SESU) or the Ministry of Defence?

Both.

That is, there is no single designated state institution that does this now.

Yes. And on the one hand, it’s bad, but on the other hand, it’s good. If there was a single defined institution now, we would have problems ranging from lack of capacity to abuse. Now we have a field that is not fully regulated, but this is good. While we are creating a new demining system, we are thinking about how to balance it properly so that we can effectively use the capacity of government agencies. I believe that thanks to their level of equipment, experience and competence, the SESU is the most experienced demining organization in the world today. However, the specifics of their work and their tasks do not fully fulfil the humanitarian demining requirements, as defined by international standards.

At present the SESU often works on providing safety guarantees. They check the territory after shelling, if, for example, it is necessary to repair the damage to critical infrastructure caused by the shelling.

Yes. They come, inspect the area and remove dangerous items in the area where repair works have to be conducted. But this is not a sustainable solution. According to international standards, the area subjected to shelling should be closed and humanitarian demining should be carried out so every inch is checked and cleared. But this is impossible at the moment. If we check every inch of territory after every round of shelling, we will really need 750 years to clear Ukraine of explosives, as the GLOBSEC think tank has estimated. That is why we are trying to rethink the principles and objectives of demining. The problem is that, based on the present experience, no one in the world can advise us on how this should be done.

So what is the role of the Ministry of Economy in this process?

Our role is temporary – crisis management.

Why crisis management?

In 2023, we realized that we could not only fight back in the war, but also attack. And after the Kharkiv and Kherson counter-offensives, we faced the task of demining the liberated territories. We started working in conditions in which there were fewer than ten operators and two demining vehicles in the country, and no coordination with stakeholders.

Our work started with interagency working group meetings every week at eight in the morning on Mondays. We would get together and get the different agencies to talk to each other. This went on for a few months, then we started meeting less frequently, and for the last six months we have not met at all. The work has become automatic. If there are any specific issues, they are now resolved over the phone. But this system still depends on leadership.

Why was this role assigned to the Ministry of Economy?

As I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, the personality factor was at play. At some point, the demining process stalled, and a political decision was made that the First Deputy Prime Minister should supervise this area. The Ministry of Economy is not the designated principal stakeholder in demining. We are just working on creating a system where there will be one responsible body – it could be the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or a specially created central executive body.

Were you invited to the Ministry of Economy to work on demining specifically?

Yes. It is my role at the ministry – creating a demining system; launching a state compensation system for demining services; creating a market for demining services; and putting things in order in relations with the international partners. Before the creation of the sectoral working group last summer, which has three co-chairs – First Vice Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, the Ambassador of Japan to Ukraine Kuninori Matsuda, and UN Resident Coordinator Denise Brown – the work was a bit chaotic. Partners often did not know who was doing what in this area. Now we have collected and systematized the information. We have created a dashboard, where we can see that there are now more than 50 countries providing demining assistance. We studied their projects and learned what kind of assistance they are providing, such as field work, procuring equipment, raising public awareness or personnel training. Now we have a working tool that we made primarily for ourselves, but we have also given our partners access. This is because they had not previously coordinated this kind of work with each other.

This year, for example, we learned that the German federal government has never before coordinated its mine action assistance strategy with recipient countries. It has always been poorer countries that have not had their own vision of the process. Therefore, donors determined the priorities and allocated funding accordingly. We are now saying that we have a strategy, a three-year work plan, and defined priorities. And we ask donors which of these priorities they would be interested in supporting. If we know that a donor is interested in supporting human capital development, then we present the priority tasks we have identified in this area. The donors have now seen a completely new way of work organization and are coordinating their next moves concerning demining support with the government of Ukraine.

Could you elaborate on the role of Poland as a donor in mine action?

Back in 2022, Poland sent almost 100 police officers to Ukraine for five months to clear our land and infrastructure of mines. During this time, they cleared 342,000 square meters, 17,500 metres of road, and removed 2,000 items.

Another important area is training. It is in Poland that the SESU specialists are trained, under the project funded by the Japanese agency JICA. Ukrainian police officers who are directly involved in mine clearance have been trained there as well.

As I remember, Poland donated Ukraine a WIKTORIA explosion-proof container on a trailer for the safe transport of unexploded ammunition.

In total, Poland’s contribution amounts to about 1.3 million US dollars.

You have described the current role of the government and international donors. What will be the role of humanitarian demining operators in the future system?

Demining operators can be put into two main categories – for-profit and non-profit. Non-profit operators – such as the Halo Trust, FSD, Global Demining, Global Clearance Solutions, International Demining Group, SafeLine – operate internationally around the world. Humanitarian demining is their mission. In Ukraine, they do a huge part of the demining work. These organizations are familiar for the big donors. They receive millions of dollars in funding because donors know that their work is transparent and clear and is carried out in compliance with international standards.

There are also domestic operators, of which there are now almost 50 in Ukraine. We would like to have a Ukrainian Halo Trust, a domestic demining operator that would grow into a large international organization and operate around the world. But right now, most Ukrainian operators are commercial organizations that work to make money. Their role now is to provide services quickly and flexibly to businesses that need them. For example, if an agricultural producer needs to clear a field of mines, he can wait for his turn with the government agencies or international operators, or he can pay for the services of a commercial operator. Currently, the government compensates 80 percent of the cost of this service, so the customer will cover only 20 per cent of the cost of such work with their own funds. So the task of small commercial operators is to provide quality services to customers.

At the same time, we were unexpectedly made aware of one important aspect of the demining process in Ukraine. At one of the meetings at the Dutch embassy, we were told that the situation with demining in Ukraine is rather different to similar work in most countries. Very often in other countries, demining is about effectively burying money in the sand. In Ukraine, the situation is such that demining costs are investments in the territory. After demining, fields will be cultivated, factories or roads may be built, and over time, these costs will be compensated. Our research has proven this to be the case, and we have now started looking for additional ways to raise funds for demining.

You said that the number of demining operators is growing very fast. How can you guarantee that their work will be of the required quality?

The operator certification process is very rigorous. First the paperwork is checked. At the next stage the equipment and the personnel are checked – whether the operator has the required personnel and whether they have been trained. The operator’s work is constantly monitored. A monitoring team can come to the site at any time and see how the work is conducted. In a way, demining is typical hazardous work, it has a lot in common with work in a mine or a steel mill. It is a dangerous and complex job. The personnel must have the appropriate qualifications.

Lastly, before the government agency issues a document stating that the site is safe, it conducts quality control. An inspection team arrives and selectively takes samples at the site and conducts a survey. Based on the results of this inspection, a quality certificate is then issued or not. If any unexpected items are found on the site and the quality of work is found to be poor, the operator, according to the procedure, repeats the entire demining process from scratch. If any problems are detected after that again, this may result in the withdrawal of the operator’s permits for work.

So the business operators work for the paying client. What about non-profit operators? How were decisions made on which of these groups operates in which territories?

A year and a half ago, there were four or five operators in Ukraine. And the scale of the problem was such that operators simply came to the Ministry of Defence and said that they were ready to take up such and such a site and the funding for this work. The ministry said, “Thank God! One site less to worry about.” Now this approach is being changed. We want to introduce a prioritization system. We are currently piloting this system in a small area in the Kharkiv region. It seems that we can combine several layers of information and at their intersection identify areas for priority demining. In this pilot project, we look at the sites for which we had information about their previous profitability; looked at the degree of destruction on the site; confirmed information about the danger of mining; and added information about social infrastructure. For example, issues regarding this final point include how many schools are located on these sites and how many children study there.

Will this information on social infrastructure be relevant in a year or two, given the significant population movements?

It will depend, among other things, on our actions. We are now taking up-to-date information from the education and science ministries on how many children are currently studying in these schools. Combining this information, we have now seen that we have highly productive areas that have not suffered very significant damage, and where the level of contamination is not very high. However, within their boundaries there are a large number of schools with a large number of children. Such areas are given the highest priority because they are productive, can be cleared relatively quickly, and at the same time, even a few mines there pose a great threat to children. If this pilot project is successful and the system is proven to be effective, we will roll it out across the country. And under this system, we will also determine which operators will work in which areas, taking into account the resources at their disposal – vehicles, the number of people or dogs, etc.

So the donors in this system work with both government agencies and non-profit operators and make decisions who they want to support.

It’s not even a matter of them making their own decisions. Each donor has own principles of work. For example, we can compare the aid provided by the US and Japan. Tokyo cannot provide military assistance, so they have taken the lead in humanitarian demining. The Japanese government supplies a huge amount of machinery and equipment to the State Emergency Service, as the SESU are the biggest experts in demining. On the other hand, the United States supplies equipment to the military in Ukraine. And in the field of humanitarian demining, they support non-profit operators. In this way, they relieve themselves of a large part of the work – there is no need to examine the needs, organise procurement procedures for the equipment, and so on. It’s easier to transfer money to a reputable and transparent organisation like the Halo Trust, which will do all the required work.

There are also governments that mostly provide funding to the international organizations. The Netherlands directs a lot of funding to the UN Family. That is, the organizations within the UN system. The UN agencies in Ukraine then distribute the funds to the various projects. Recently, they (the UN – editor’s note) have started consulting the government. Not everything works perfectly yet, because for a long time the UN has been determining what they want to do in Ukraine on their own. Now we are building a system of consultations with the government, in which we highlight our priorities.

When we at the Ministry of Economy started coordinating the demine action, we brought together ambassadors from G7 countries, and the representatives of the EU and the UN for a meeting. At first, they were skeptical when we outlined our plans and priorities. But just a year later, they are already asking us about our next events and plans. That is, in a year we managed to change the attitude towards us. And now, if international donors want to do something in the field of demine action, they come to us and consult us, asking if the work of certain organizations is among the priorities of the Ukrainian government.

At the same time, I want to emphasize once again that our goal is not to have the Ministry of Economy remain the coordinator of antimine action. Our task is to find all the specialists who are now scattered across different structures, gather them into one system and let it go so that it can continue to work autonomously.

A warning sign placed all over Ukraine where there is a suspicion of mines or munitions. Photo: Kateryna Pryshchepa

I would like to ask about the different methods applied to return the land to use. The Nibulon company has announced that they have been able to return more than 5,000 hectares of arable land to cultivation based on the results of a non-technical survey, establishing that the land does not require demining. Is there such statistics for the whole of Ukraine?

In Ukraine, 30,000 square kilometres (three million hectares – editor’s note) were returned to use last year, mostly based on non-technical surveys. Many thousands of hectares were demined, but the bulk of the territory was returned to use based on the results of non-technical surveys. And this is not a unique Ukrainian experience, it is a global practice.

When we talk about the territories that the Ukrainian government has not controlled for some time, we do not know what has been happening there. In such a situation, a non-technical survey is conducted – a survey of the population and checks regarding the presence or absence of enemy forces and equipment in a particular area. After that, the area is either closed until it is demined or returned to cultivation. Most of the territory in Ukraine will return to cultivation based on the results of a non-technical survey. In Ukraine, we are currently trying to understand how best to use additional sources of information, such as satellite imagery. By using these images, we can greatly reduce the number of areas we need to visit for surveys. If in satellite images we see a field that has clearly been shelled by artillery, such as destroyed fortifications, we don’t need to go there to see it. We immediately close this area and set a task for the next demining operator. Now we are trying to analyse, describe and standardize this technology.

Can drone footage be used as well?

Yes, but this technology is also not codified with international standards yet.

We know that demining in Ukraine is a long-term process, but how do we know that we are doing the right thing, moving in the right direction?

We are doing everything right if we have managed to return 30,000 square kilometres into use in a year. This is a huge area, the size of a European country. No one can tell us what is totally right in a situation where no one knows what to do. We are now facing an unprecedented task. Time will tell what was the best way to act. And we need to be aware that the closer we get to the current front line, the more time the demining work will take. The Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions were the areas where quick manoeuvre combat operations took place. It is relatively easy to clear them of mines, although it is still problematic. The more unstable and fast changing the theatre of operations is, the more difficult it is to detect minefields. There is movement of military units and sabotage. It is difficult. At the same time, when the front line is stable, we know about minefields, we have mine maps and fortification plans. But since the front line has not moved for a long time, this gives time for more mining. When the front line moves, it will take a long time to remove explosive materials.

The former contact lines in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, which are now our rear, pose a huge problem. We are constantly losing people and equipment there, and the work there is very difficult. What will happen when we reach the current Zaporizhzhia section of the front line? We now know of areas where, according to captured Russian documents, about 15,000 pieces of explosive ordnance were used on a one-kilometre-wide section of the front line. This will be an incredible amount of work, and demining those areas will take a very long time. There are also places where the territories have been completely destroyed. The fields resemble a lunar landscape dotted with craters. We face the problem of not only the direct removal of hazardous items, but also the subsequent reclamation of these areas and their restoration.

Given the resources and time required, we must also ask ourselves how we should go about it. Perhaps we can bring back to life some of the areas that have been most devastated by explosive ordnance in a different way and even create a model for this. Future commitments under the green transition will impose certain obligations on us, so perhaps some areas destroyed by explosions will need to be reforested and taken out of agricultural cultivation for the time being.

So we should assume that some places will not be restored to their pre-war state?

We have a lot of work to do. And we must remember that we should think not simply of such issues. We need to talk more broadly about demine action. These activities include a range of actions from informing the public and teaching safety rules to children, up to the work on the disposal of residue in warehouses. I really hope that one day we will move on to this. We will also need to disarm Russian soldiers. Therefore, we need to develop the capacity to dispose of ammunition.

What kind of recycling capacity does Ukraine have now?

At the moment, Ukraine does not have such capabilities. And this is a very complex problem. It is very wrong to blow up all such ammunition in a field somewhere. Now all the ammunition that is more or less usable is being used.

Is it used at the front line

Yes. But there are still materials that are unusable.

And there are no companies in Ukraine that dispose of other ammunition?

We have a few companies that have been involved in the disposal of leftover resources. But this disposal involves other processes. Unusable ammunition is very unstable and can explode at any time.

For example, a truck carrying shells was hit by a shell itself and the shells onboard were scattered all over the field. They didn’t explode but were on fire, so they are already unstable. If you start cutting into such a shell, it can explode. To dispose of them it is necessary to build facilities where they can be cut under appropriate conditions – very slowly, in a cold temperature and with other precautions in place so if such a shell explodes, it will not harm anyone. This requires planning. You need to think about what to do with this equipment. In any case, we need to develop recycling. For one thing, ammunition contains kinetic substances that could, for example, be burned to generate energy.

I was in Cambodia. They are now recycling a very large share of explosives. How did they get to this point? The Americans stopped supplying them with C4 (explosives – editor’s note). Cambodia does not have its own production. They could not buy from their neighbours – Thailand, China, Vietnam – but they needed explosives. As a result, they started cutting up old shells, removing the explosives from them and repackaging them. Their production lines look rather primitive, but the system works, and they meet their national needs.

This interview was first published in Ukrainian by Nash Wybir, a portal for Ukrainians in Poland.

Ihor Bezkaravainy is a Ukrainian civil servant and veteran of the Ukrainian-Russian war. In July 2023 he was appointed the Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine. A native of Donetsk region in 2014-2016 served in 93rd Brigade “Kholodny Yar” and was wounded as a result of a mine explosion. In 2022 Bezkaravainy was a member of the Ukrainian team at the Invictus Games. As a civil servant he held positions in the Ministry of youth and sports and Ministry of Health, was the Deputy Minister of Veteran Affairs.

Kateryna Pryshchepa is a Ukrainian journalist and a contributing editor with New Eastern Europe.

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demining, mines, Polish-Ukrainian relations, Russian invasion of Ukraine, security