Ukrainian government creates market for humanitarian demining services
Photo: illustrative picture/ The General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces
Ukraine is developing a market with the possibility of purchasing services through auctions.
First Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, Yulia Svyrydenko, told Ukrinform in an interview dedicated to humanitarian demining that the state will actively involve foreign and domestic private mine action operators.
What is the problem?
After the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine became the most polluted country in Europe with mines, bombs, and shells.
Due to Russian aggression, the total area of mined territories in Ukraine is 174,000 square kilometers, twice Austria's.
The State Emergency Service states that the Front-line Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Donbas regions are the most mined. It will take at least ten years to clear these areas.
"We need innovations, new approaches, and new standards in demining agricultural lands to return them to use as soon as possible. We are in constant dialogue with Ukrainian and international operators and are looking for these approaches," said Svyrydenko.
What is the solution?
Ukraine will actively involve foreign and domestic private mine action operators in humanitarian demining work, for which it is developing a market with the possibility of purchasing services through auctions.
According to her, the first auction for demining the forest area will be held in August.
Solutions to win: First Ukrainian demining machine receives national license for mass production
How does it work?
"All parties are interested in this approach. There are private demining operators and private customers of the service. The state's task is to create conditions for their transparent cooperation," the government official explained.
The minister says it is essential to speed up new players entering the market, particularly the certification of mine action operators. The certification process should be faster and take no more than three weeks, Svyrydenko believes.
For this to become possible, experts from the Ministry of Economy and other interested agencies are currently analyzing regulatory acts to determine which need updating, which should be canceled, and which should be digitized.
According to Svyrydenko, 14 certified mine action operators work in Ukraine, some of whom have considerable experience working abroad. In total, 333 humanitarian demining groups (3,000 sappers) work nationwide. By the end of the year, there will be twice as many specialists.
The authorities also support the initiative of some agricultural producers who, after the appropriate certification, are ready to carry out land surveying and demining work on their own.
"The fact that we have a larger number of operators is a good signal. After all, there is a lot of work, so increasing resources is an opportunity to make our land safe faster. We welcome agricultural holdings wanting to join this process," said Svyrydenko.
She noted three certification centers in Ukraine — Kamianets-Podilskyi, Merefa, and Chernihiv — where sappers are trained and where one can get a mine action operator's certificate by submitting documents according to the established form.
As reported, the Ukrainian agricultural company Nibulon recently received the status of mine action operator. The company received the first certificate for humanitarian demining and reconnaissance of potentially contaminated areas. The operator is also preparing to receive certificates for the technical survey of territories, manual demining, and study of the area of hostilities.
As Rubryka reported, demining the Ukrainian territory is a challenge for the military and farmers: there is a request for 150 demining systems from the Ministry of Economy alone.
