Plots for vegetables and melons to be cleared of mines as priority

In Ukraine, demining will be carried out primarily on lands intended for agricultural production, where it is planned to plant vegetable and melon crops, the Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine for Digital Development, Digital Transformations and Digitalization, Denis Bashlyk, said during a meeting with G7 ambassadors, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy reports.

According to him, this decision is the most economically justified and will help ensure global food security.

Bashlyk also added that, given these needs, Ukraine requires financial support, the involvement of special equipment for mechanized demining, and assistance with training people.

In addition, among the plans for the near future are the expansion of the pilot project for the development of innovative survey methods, the development of the capacity of humanitarian demining in priority regions and the collection for demining activities on the United24 platform.

In general, according to the priority demining plan, there are plans to survey and demine 470,854 hectares of agricultural land in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Chernihiv, and Cherkasy oblasts.

In addition, the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration urges farmers not to start work on dangerous land plots.

"Every week, there are cases both in the agro-industrial sphere and in the civil sphere, unfortunately, of people and special equipment being blown up. Once again, I urge you to pay attention to the situation, be cautious and start fieldwork only after surveying the area," said Deputy Chief of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration Yevhen Ivanov.

There are 20 pyrotechnic devices operating in Kharkiv Oblast, demining territories. About 100 new specialists should soon join them. 300,000 potentially dangerous hectares cannot be cleared of mines due to closeness to the contact line.