About 300 thousand square meters. m of the territory of Ukraine needs humanitarian demining due to the large amount of ammunition left by the occupiers, sowing work on a large area of Ukrainian fields cannot begin due to the threat of explosive objects there, the State Emergency Service reports.
“To date, we have conducted an indicative analysis of the territories where it is necessary to carry out a set of measures for humanitarian demining … According to our preliminary estimates, this is about 300 thousand square kilometers, almost half of the territory of our country,” the head of the Office of the organization of pyrotechnic works and humanitarian demining of the State Emergency Service Oleg Bondar.
He noted that there are pyrotechnic divisions in every region of Ukraine, in total, about 550 pyrotechnicians work in the State Emergency Service.
“An average of 2,000 to 6,000 explosive items are seized and rendered harmless every day,” a spokesman for the State Emergency Service said.
According to Bondar, at present the main demining efforts are concentrated in the Irpen-Buchansky, Chernihiv-Brovary, Nezhensky and Trostyanets directions.
The representative of the State Emergency Service emphasized that, despite the ongoing shelling, pyrotechnicians work daily in the Kharkiv and Nikolaev regions.
Answering a question about how soon residents of the Kiev region can return home after clearing the territories, the head of the department said: “We worked out Irpen. But there are households where there were no owners. We, as a rescue service, have no right to enter private territory. Therefore, we we leave a notice: if a person returns home, then they call us and inspect, after which we give permission to be in the house.
At the same time, Bondar added: “But the main decision on the possibility of returning people is the function of local authorities.”
The representative of the State Emergency Service also noted that Ukrainian explosives technicians are highly qualified and work with modern Iskander-type ammunition, ammunition used in aviation – Surface-to-air and Air-to-air missiles.
“There is the use of multiple launch rocket systems with cluster elements … from the Iskander system, when, when triggered, they are scattered over large areas and the elements are in combat readiness. Our specialists destroy such ammunition directly at the place of their detection, that is, these are the ammunition that cannot be moved, transported, neutralized in any way other than a physical explosion,” the representative of the State Emergency Service said.
Bondar stressed that the Russian invaders use anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, in the Kharkov region the enemy used remote mining systems.
According to the head of the State Emergency Service, rescuers inform law enforcement agencies about all the facts of the location of prohibited ammunition.
He also stressed that due to large-scale mining by the enemy, a very large area of fields in Ukraine cannot yet be used for agricultural activities.
“But we will do our best to provide our farmers with the opportunity to carry out sowing work as soon as possible,” he assured.
“Of course, when there is information that a survey has not been carried out in a settlement for the presence of explosive objects, it is very dangerous to be in this settlement. Together with the local authorities, we are taking all measures to limit the access of the civilian population to settlements until examination was carried out,” Bondar summed up.
