The European Union has allocated EUR 2 million for a new humanitarian program to demine the territory of Ukraine, under which Ukrainian canine handlers with specially trained dogs will search for and defuse unexploded ordnance, the press service of the EU Delegation to Ukraine reported.

According to the report, the project is financed by the European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) and is being implemented jointly with the humanitarian mine action organizations APOPO, which specializes in the use of animals for demining, and the Mines Advisory Group (МАG).

"The 16 Belgian Malinois will be the first technical survey dogs to be deployed in Ukraine. Together with their eight handlers, who are all Ukrainian women, they underwent extensive training in Cambodia for five months before returning to Ukraine," the report notes.

Many of the dog handlers had previously studied dog training at Ukraine’s Sumy National Agrarian University. During their dog handler course, they have also been trained in manual demining.

The dogs will be used to supplement MAG’s manual and mechanical clearance efforts in liberated Ukrainian territories, including in Mykolaiv, Kherson and Kharkiv regions.

The Director of FPI, Peter M. Wagner, said: "We are pleased to be able to fund this initiative as part of the EU’s support to improve and scale-up humanitarian mine action in Ukraine. We believe that this innovative project can significantly speed up the clearance of contaminated land and its release for civilian use."

In certain conditions, technical survey dog teams are able to survey large tracts of land much more quickly than human deminers, identifying explosive items and helping to confirm whether land is safe. When the dog teams find a landmine or unexploded item of ordnance, MAG’s deminers will be tasked with making the item safe.

MAG Ukraine Country Director Jon Cunliffe said: "Dogs have the potential to significantly speed up the clearance of certain types of terrain and contamination. They can be a really important tool when combined with traditional manual and mechanised demining teams."

Nick Guest, APOPO’s Programme Manager for Ukraine, said: "The EU’s commitment will enable us to return suspected contaminated land to the Ukrainian people much more quickly than would otherwise be the case. We will be recruiting and training new handlers in the coming months as we scale up our operations."

APOPO is a global provider of mine detection animals that has developed effective mine clearance technology that is deployed in low-income countries. The organization protects people from the risks of landmines and other consequences of war. APOPO employs more than 450 people in 10 countries.

Mines Advisory Group (MAG) is a global humanitarian and human rights organization that finds, removes, and destroys landmines, cluster munitions, and unexploded bombs in conflict-affected areas. The organization employs approximately 6,000 people in more than 30 countries. In 1997, MAG received the Nobel Peace Prize for its role in banning landmines.