Ukraine says 27% of landmines will need to be cleared within months
According to the latest estimates by the ecology ministry, about 27 per cent of Ukraine's territory will need to be cleared of mines and explosives within a few months of Russia's invasion and bombardment of its neighbour.
More than 620 sq km of land have been cleared by Ukrainian authorities, which have been riddled with thousands of explosive devices, including 2,000 bombs dropped from the air.
Nearly 300,000 sq km are still seen as contaminated according to data released by Ukraine's Emergency Services. The government said that it would take a decade to make that area safe.
The U.S. State Department approved $89 million for US aid to help Ukraine train 100 teams to clear landmines and unexploded ordnance for a year.
The latest demining efforts were focused on the northeastern region of Sumy, where Ukrainian authorities conducted controlled explosions on Thursday to clear landmines.
Russian forces crossed into the Sumy region shortly after the invasion began on February 24. The Russians retreated after failing to win the capital, Kyiv, and Ukrainian forces took control of the region on April 8.
Four months on, demining experts sifted through a site they were clearing, looking for cannon shells and unexploded landmines. Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi said that Sumy is one of the most contaminated regions in the country.
More than 175,000 munitions have been neutralized and an area of 67,639 hectares has been surveyed, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, which updates its website on a daily basis.
The removal of mines from Ukraine's territorial waters is likely to take five to seven years, Monastyrskyi said.
He said it is the most difficult type of demining.
The operation to remove unexploded devices from the land and waters may not be enough to protect the environment and human health, environmentalists said.
The consequences of such pollution could last for decades, according to Sofiia Sadogurska, a climate expert at the Centre for Environmental Initiatives Ecoaction. The Ukrainian ecology ministry said Russian forces had committed 1,655 instances of environmental crime since the start of the war, with total damage amounting to 204 billion hryvnia US $5.63 billion Moscow calls the invasion a military operation to demilitarise Ukraine and rid it of dangerous nationalists. Ukraine and its allies dismiss this as a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression.