United to win: Lithuania and Sweden purchase trucks to aid demining efforts in Ukraine
The Demining Capabilities Coalition member nations have agreed to allocate 22 million euros to meet the requirements of the State Special Transport Service and the Command of the Support Forces of Ukraine's armed forces.
The press service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported that.
What is the solution?
During a meeting among Coalition partners in Reykjavík, Iceland's capital, it was decided that pick-up trucks would be purchased to meet the needs of Ukrainian units.
How does it work?
Representatives of countries interested in cooperation attended the event, as did representatives of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Ukrainian army's Support Forces Command.
As specified in the department:
- Lithuania allocated 15 million euros,
- Sweden – 7 million euros.
The participants of the event, particularly representatives of the partner countries, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, and the Support Forces Command of Ukraine's armed forces, discussed further cooperation plans. They agreed on a list of purchases for humanitarian and combat demining.
Photo: Ministry of Defense
The development of demining units' capabilities until 2034 was also addressed in the Roadmap project.
Colonel Ruslan Berehulia stressed the significance of conducting humanitarian demining in recently reclaimed territories. At the same time, Major General Dmytro Hereha appreciated the support from international allies and highlighted the importance of engineering equipment for Ukraine's military.
The aim of the Coalition, spearheaded by Lithuania and Iceland, is to enhance the capacity of Ukrainian forces for both combat and humanitarian demining.
For reference:
Earlier, Rubryka reported that sappers had surveyed over 200,000 hectares of fertile land since the beginning of the year. They cleared the land of mines and returned it to farmers for sowing and harvesting once again.
The top three regions with the highest number of demining activities since the beginning of the year are Kherson, Kharkiv, and Mykolaiv.
As stated by Shoko Noda, Assistant Secretary General of the UN and Director of the UNDP Crisis Office, it could take up to a hundred years to remove all explosive objects left in Ukrainian territory as a result of Russian aggression, using conventional demining techniques.
It should be noted that by the end of the year, a third of all demining machines in Ukraine will be Japanese-made.
