Interior Minister: Quarter of Ukraine's territory contaminated with mines, full humanitarian demining possible only after war end
Currently, a quarter of the territory of Ukraine is contaminated with explosive objects, it will be possible to talk about full humanitarian demining only after the end of the war, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko has said.
In an interview with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, speaking about how long it will take for Ukraine to clear the territory of explosive objects, the minister noted that it is impossible to predict this while the fighting is going on.
"We will clear some locality, determine it to be safe, and then the shelling will begin again. And we start all over again. Therefore, there are many conventions here. Moreover, we still find shells from the Second World War in the ground," the minister said.
According to him, in general, as a result of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, as of today about 25% of the territory of Ukraine is contaminated with mines and explosive objects.
"The de-occupied regions are the most densely mined. Actually, stabilization measures there begin with mine clearance," Klymenko said.
He also explained that the mine clearance process is divided into three stages: combat, operational and humanitarian.
"At the combat stage, the military is clearing the territory, moving along the front. On the operational level, there are police and rescuers when they carry out stabilization measures in de–occupied territories. Humanitarian demining is already a complete deep cleaning of both land and water areas from explosive objects," the Interior Minister said.
At the same time, he added that it is currently important to ensure at least minimally safe living conditions for the population in the de-occupied territories.
"On the scale of the whole country, it will be possible to talk about full humanitarian demining only after the end of the war. Now we are mainly in the first and second stages," Klymenko summed up.