Solutions to win: Ukraine approves new profession of deminers to combat explosive threats
Photo: Yuliia Svyrydenko / Facebook
The National Qualifications Agency has approved a newly established professional standard for deminers.
The Ministry of Economy of Ukraine's press service reported this.
What is the problem?
Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and active hostilities, the country is contaminated with explosive objects. Some analysts call Ukraine the most mined country in the world.
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war, the Ukrainian land area affected by mines and explosives has grown to 174,000 square kilometers, with over 5 million Ukrainians residing in these regions.
Hence, Ukraine has established a demining division to operate in the freed territories. They have formed 1,000 groups of deminers consisting of 5,000 experts.
In addition, 33 operators of mine countermeasures have already been certified in Ukraine, and the number of demining tools being developed is increasing.
However, previously, there was no unified professional standard for deminers in Ukraine, which made it challenging to educate professionals.
What is the solution?
Therefore, the National Qualifications Agency approved a new professional standard for deminers.
The availability of the new standard creates uniform rules for training, which will allow veterans to be involved in humanitarian demining and facilitate their integration both in the Ukrainian and international spheres.
Solutions to win: Ukrainian engineers create device to defuse enemy mines, compared to technology from sci-fi classic Dune
How does it work?
The Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, Ihor Bezkaravainy, emphasized that the new standard will significantly expand the opportunities for training and allow the obtaining of internationally recognized qualifications.
Once the standard has been approved, new requirements will be implemented in the legal realm, explicitly addressing the professional code and wages.
An educational standard for the training of certified deminers will also be developed.
The developed standard provides five levels of training, from the basic level for non-technical surveys to the level for demining territories and buildings.
For reference:
Due to the full-scale war, large areas of Ukraine have been polluted with explosives, but the government is making progress in clearing these regions.
So far, sappers have demined and returned 310,000 hectares of agricultural land to use.
"Regarding the demining of agricultural land. 310,000 hectares have already been examined, demined, and returned to use. This is an incredible job, for which we are grateful to our sappers," Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.
Shmyhal reminded that the government allocated UAH 3.5 billion for the humanitarian demining project. According to him, the following are already working:
- 47 operators of mine countermeasures,
- more than 2.2 thousand sappers.
"There are 109 demining machines available; another 68 have been contracted. Our task is to return all agricultural lands to use as soon as possible," the head of government said.
Currently, Ukraine intends to involve more women in demining.
Recently, Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko reported that women make up 30% of all mine action operators, and the government intends to increase this figure.
