United to win: Estonia delivers underwater demining equipment to Ukraine

Estonia provided Ukrainian rescuers with a batch of aid for underwater demining, Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs reports.

What is the problem?

The Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration said that after the Russian occupation of part of the southern Mykolaiv region and hostilities on its territory, 288,000 hectares of agricultural land needed to be checked for possible mining or contamination with explosive objects.

As of June 23, 2023, 57,000 hectares of agricultural land have been surveyed, of which 10,500 are subject to demining and 6,700 hectares have already been demined.

As the head of the humanitarian demining organization department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Colonel Serhii Reva, explained, among the entire area of mined territories of Ukraine, almost 13,500 square kilometers are water bodies, water areas of the Black and Azov seas. Of them, approximately 7,300 kilometers are unoccupied territories.

What is the solution?

According to the report, on August 1, Estonian rescuers handed over 90 metal detectors and four specialized vehicles to their Ukrainian colleagues from Mykolaiv.

How does it work?

Mykolaiv rescuers also received humanitarian aid from the municipality of the German city of Sindelfingen.

"The benefactors handed over a fire-extinguishing agent (Solberg RE-HEALING RF 3×6 ATC 3%-6 foaming agent), foam pipes, dispensers for foaming agent, cable drums, fire axes, searchlights, and much more for the needs of Mykolaiv firefighters," the ministry said in a statement.

Earlier, at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting last week, the Minister of Defense of Lithuania announced the creation of a demining coalition to help Kyiv.

Lithuania has become one of the participants of the Northern European-Lithuanian Sappers Training Initiative (NLETI), which provides for four trainings during 2023 with the aim of training and training Ukrainian sappers.