Over the past year, Ukraine has significantly increased its demining capabilities, increasing the number of demining operators and demining machines many times over. This was stated by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal during the second Demine Ukraine forum held on December 2 in Kyiv. By the end of the year, government and private operators had 151 humanitarian demining vehicles, and the number of deminers had increased to more than 4,000.

“We are grateful to all our partners for providing demining vehicles, which are becoming more and more numerous. At the same time, we focus on localization and development of Ukrainian production. Ukrainian and foreign equipment manufactured in Ukraine is already working in the fields and demonstrating excellent results. We urge our partners who want to help us with equipment to order the production of new machines produced by Ukrainian enterprises. This will be a double help for us: both for our economy and our security,” said Denys Shmyhal at the opening of the event.

Another important achievement of this year was the opening of the humanitarian demining market, which allowed private demining operators to be involved in humanitarian demining. This was stated by Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, summarizing the results of the industry for the current year.

“To help farmers, we have launched a compensation mechanism for demining services and cover 100% of the cost of such work. Thirty-one auctions have already been held in the Prozorro system, resulting in agreements worth almost half a billion hryvnias. We managed to get a drop in the initial price of more than 17%, saving about UAH 92 million. The program will continue next year, with UAH 1 billion allocated for it,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko. 

One of the key tasks for the government and the Ministry of Economy is to support innovations in humanitarian demining. New technologies, such as the use of drones with mine detection sensors, can become game changers in demining, says Yuliia Svyrydenko. Therefore, the Ministry of Economy will work to increase the number of grants for innovators next year.

In total, the forum brought together more than 350 participants, including representatives of the government, international organizations, business, non-governmental initiatives, and demining experts. Thematic panels discussed the economic effect of demining, technologies and innovations in demining, production of demining equipment, etc.

To watch the broadcast of each Forum panel, please follow the link.

The partners of the Demine Ukraine Forum were the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Ukraine, PUMB, Kyivstar, Uklon, Starlightmedia, the American Chamber of Commerce, and the European Business Association.