07 December 2022, Wednesday, 17:15 144

Third Of Ukraine Is Mined, Pyrotechnic Units Of State Emergency Service Need To Be Equipped With Robotics - Internal Affairs Ministry

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

A third of Ukraine is mined, the Ministry of Internal Affairs calls on international partners and donors to help equip the pyrotechnic units of the State Emergency Service with robotics to clear the territories from explosive objects as soon as possible. This is stated in the message of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"We call on our international partners and donors to participate even more actively in the process. Since a third of the country is mined, the pyrotechnic units of the State Emergency Service work around the clock, some of them actually manually. Now the key need is the appropriate technical equipment of the units, first of all, with robotics. 40 pyrotechnic units of the State Emergency Service need a basic staffing," said Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Meri Akopian during a meeting with a delegation of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

She informed the partners that since the beginning of 2022, the number of rescuers has doubled. Currently, it is planned to increase the number of the Service by another 500 specialists.

Every day, pyrotechnics of the State Emergency Service examine an average area of about 70 hectares, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia, they have checked more than 760 square kilometers of territories, about 300,000 explosive objects have already been neutralized. In addition, explosive units of the National Police, the National Guard and the State Border Guard Service are involved in demining.

The deputy head of the State Emergency Service, Dmytro Bondar, spoke about the critical situation in the east and south of the country, in particular, in the de-occupied territories of the Kharkiv, Kherson and Mykolaiv Regions, where many settlements were destroyed and the infrastructure was completely mined.

He emphasized that the main task of the pyrotechnicians of the State Emergency Service in these regions is the humanitarian demining of life support facilities for the further restoration of energy and gas supply, communication, and currently there is an urgent need for the appropriate technical support of pyrotechnicians to perform works on which the lives of the civilian population directly depend and recovery of the regions as a whole.

The head of the UNOPS delegation, Director of the Peace and Security Cluster, Amir Omeragic, noted that Ukraine is now the country most polluted by explosives in the world.

"Ukraine is currently the country most polluted by explosive objects in the world. And we understand the scale of the needs. That is why we started communication with donors already in Geneva, stressing their attention that the future and success of mine action in Ukraine depends precisely on the effective work of the relevant government structures," he said.

The head of the delegation also informed that preparation of the future project of international technical assistance is underway in UNOPS.

The head of the Mine Action Unit of the UNOPS Peace and Security Cluster in Ukraine, Jes Luckett, said that it is planned to equip 15 pyrotechnic units, the types and models of the equipment and its quantity are currently being specified for the further search for the necessary funding.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in September, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that more than 70,000 square kilometers in settlements liberated from the occupiers in 10 regions were mined with ammunition and explosive devices.

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