The European Union has allocated EUR2m for a new humanitarian demining program in Ukraine, under which Ukrainian cynologists with specially trained dogs will search for and clear unexploded ordnance, the press service of the EU Delegation in Ukraine has reported.
According to the report, the project is funded by the European Commission’s Foreign Policy Instruments Service (FPI) and is being implemented jointly with humanitarian mine action organizations APOPO, which specializes in the use of animals for demining, and Mines Advisory Group (MAG).
“The 16 Belgian Malinois will be the first technical reconnaissance dogs to be deployed in Ukraine. Together with their eight guides, all of whom are Ukrainians, they underwent extensive training in Cambodia for five months before returning to Ukraine,” the statement said.
The EU Delegation in Ukraine specified that many of the dog handlers had previously studied dog training at the Sumy National Agrarian University and were trained in manual demining.
The dogs will be used to complement the MAG’s manual and mechanized demining efforts in liberated Ukrainian territories, including in the Mykolaiv, Kherson and Kharkiv regions.
“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 this innovative project can significantly accelerate the cleanup of contaminated land and its release for civilian use,” said FPI Director Peter M. Wagner.
Under certain conditions, teams of technical reconnaissance dogs can survey large tracts of land much faster than bomb squads, identifying explosive hazards and helping to confirm the safety of an area. If teams with dogs find a mine or unexploded ordnance, MAG deminers will be tasked to defuse the item, the EU Delegation to Ukraine explained.
MAG Ukraine Director John Cunliffe believes that dogs have the potential to significantly speed up the cleanup of certain types of terrain and contamination. “They can be a really important tool in combination with traditional manual and mechanized demining teams,” he added.
“The EU commitment will allow us to return supposedly 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,” said APOPO Ukraine Program Manager Nick Gest.
The European Commission’s Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) service implements the EU’s foreign policy. Humanitarian mine action is a key element of the support FPI has mobilized for Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. Its total funding to date amounts to EUR55 million.
APOPO is a global provider of mine detection animals that has developed effective mine clearance technology that is implemented in low-income countries. The organization protects people from the risk of landmines and other consequences of war. APOPO employs more than 450 people in 10 countries.
The European Union (EU) will change the rules of entry and exit in the fall: citizens of non-EU countries will be required to register their fingerprints and facial images at the border.
As reported by the MAPA public union on Monday, the relevant changes were discussed at a meeting between representatives of the Transport Community and representatives of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency at the Ministry of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine.
The changes will affect transportation and travel to 30 European countries, the statement said.
“The first change concerns the introduction of the entry-exit system (EES). From now on, all non-EU citizens will be required to register their fingerprints and facial images at the border. This process will begin in the fall of this year,” MAPA said.
Another change will take effect from mid-2025: travelers will have to submit an online application to the European Travel Authorization Information System (ETIAS) before starting their trip and pay a EUR7 fee.
MAPA clarified that in connection with these innovations, transport companies will have to make changes to their booking, document verification, passenger check-in systems and adapt their operating procedures.
A EUR100 million grant agreement has been signed by Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, Chairman of the Board of NPC Ukrenergo, and Lorenz Gessner, Head of the Representative Office of the German state development bank KfW in Ukraine, the company said.
According to its Telegram post on Friday, the signing took place in Kyiv on Thursday in the presence of Deputy Energy Minister Roman Andarak and members of the EU Delegation to Ukraine.
It is noted that the European Commission has authorized KfW to provide Ukrenergo with funds from the EU’s special budget program Ukraine Investment Facility and to ensure the financing and implementation of a number of priority energy projects.
These include the modernization of high-voltage substations in the western regions of Ukraine and the development of interconnectors connecting it to the power system of continental Europe, as well as the repair and restoration of equipment destroyed or damaged by Russian shelling at high-voltage substations, and the purchase and supply of new equipment.
In addition, part of the funds should be used to strengthen the physical protection of Ukrenergo’s substations.
NPC noted that this grant is the second phase of the target program “Reconstruction and Restoration of Ukraine’s Electricity Transmission Infrastructure”, as the company signed an agreement with KfW on the first phase of the program worth EUR 15 million at the Berlin Conference on the Restoration of Ukraine-2024 in June.
In total, since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukrenergo has attracted EUR324 million with the support of KfW, and the total amount of international assistance attracted amounted to EUR1.5 billion, the NPC summarized.
Ukraine is exhausting its tariff-free quotas for honey, corn and chicken supplies to the European Union, European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski said at a conference after the Council of Agricultural Ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday.
“I am pleased that today, during the discussion on Ukraine, member states generally expressed positive views on the new autonomous trade measures and on the safeguard measures introduced. It was the initiative of the European Commissioner for Agriculture to introduce these import limits, and they are working. They were activated for three products – sugar, eggs and oats. We are observing the situation with other sensitive products. Honey, whose exports have already reached 89% of the limits, corn – 67%, and chicken – 59%,” he said.
Wojciechowski emphasized that European politicians’ accusations against the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy that it is aimed at reducing domestic production and further increasing dependence on imported products are unfounded. The EU has been and will remain the largest exporter of agricultural products in the world, he assured.
According to the European Commissioner, the EU’s agricultural trade surplus in 2023 reached a record EUR 70 billion. This year, this record may be broken, as in the first quarter alone, the EU’s trade surplus with third countries already amounted to EUR 18 billion.
In January-June 2024, Ukraine exported $10.97 billion worth of goods to the European Union, which is 9.7% less than in the first half of 2023, Deputy Minister of Economy and Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka said.
“This is an obvious correlation of transportation routes. Exports to the EU decreased the most to neighboring countries – to Poland by 25.7%, to Slovakia by 21.3%, to Hungary by 67.2%, and to Romania by 50.2%. On the other hand, exports to Spain (81.1%), Italy (24.7%), and the Netherlands (22.4%) increased significantly,” he wrote on Facebook.
Kachka pointed out that this correlation makes it possible to clearly see trade with the EU without forced transit to third countries.
“This will allow us to resolve a lot of problems that have accumulated in relations with neighboring countries,” he suggested.
The Ukrainian trade representative emphasized that the existing problems show that in 2022-2024 Ukraine has significantly narrowed the range of “sensitive” goods in trade. Before the war, these included steel, which was subject to trade protection, and 36 categories of agricultural products that were subject to temporary liberalization, or quotas.
He reminded that under the current phase of autonomous trade measures, the number of such sensitive products has been reduced to seven: poultry, eggs, sugar, honey, corn, oats, and cereals.
Commenting on the European Commission’s quotas on Ukrainian sugar and eggs, Kachka noted that active exports from Ukraine have reached certain thresholds.
“If the sugar trade with the EU is suspended to normalize trade in accordance with the decision of the Ukrainian side, the export of eggs will continue. We expect that the general EU quota within the WTO will apply to Ukrainian products and a reduced duty of EUR15.2 per 100 kg (quota 09.0154) will be applied,” he wrote, adding that all these nuances have been discussed with both the EU and the market.
The Ukrainian trade representative emphasized that Ukraine’s common goal is to resolve all sensitive issues with the EU and define clear parameters of trade under the Association Agreement by June 5, 2025.
In January-June 2024, Ukraine exported $10.97 billion worth of goods to the European Union, which is 9.7% less than in the first half of 2023, Deputy Minister of Economy and Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka said.
“This is an obvious correlation of transportation routes. Exports to the EU decreased the most to neighboring countries – to Poland by 25.7%, to Slovakia by 21.3%, to Hungary by 67.2%, and to Romania by 50.2%. On the other hand, exports to Spain (81.1%), Italy (24.7%), and the Netherlands (22.4%) increased significantly,” he wrote on Facebook.
Kachka pointed out that this correlation makes it possible to clearly see trade with the EU without forced transit to third countries.
“This will allow us to resolve a lot of problems that have accumulated in relations with neighboring countries,” he suggested.
The Ukrainian trade representative emphasized that the existing problems show that in 2022-2024 Ukraine has significantly narrowed the range of “sensitive” goods in trade. Before the war, these included steel, which was subject to trade protection, and 36 categories of agricultural products that were subject to temporary liberalization, or quotas.
He reminded that under the current phase of autonomous trade measures, the number of such sensitive products has been reduced to seven: poultry, eggs, sugar, honey, corn, oats, and cereals.
Commenting on the European Commission’s quotas on Ukrainian sugar and eggs, Kachka noted that active exports from Ukraine have reached certain thresholds.
“If the sugar trade with the EU is suspended to normalize trade in accordance with the decision of the Ukrainian side, the export of eggs will continue. We expect that the general EU quota within the WTO will apply to Ukrainian products and a reduced duty of EUR15.2 per 100 kg (quota 09.0154) will be applied,” he wrote, adding that all these nuances have been discussed with both the EU and the market.
The Ukrainian trade representative emphasized that Ukraine’s common goal is to resolve all sensitive issues with the EU and define clear parameters of trade under the Association Agreement by June 5, 2025.
