A new large-scale study of the results of mine-action work in Ukraine has been launched in Kyiv. It is run by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in partnership with the UN Development Program in Ukraine, with financial support from the Netherlands, the leading international partner in Ukraine's demining sector, ArmyInform reported.
The study aims to assess comprehensively how mine action affects economic recovery, public safety, community development, environmental rehabilitation, and Ukraine's progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.
It will combine analysis of existing data, field research, and consultations with a wide range of state and international partners, with Ukraine's Defense Ministry as one of the key state partners shaping its methodology.
The country is learning to clear the densest minefields in the world
The Ukrainian side's contribution is what makes the study distinctive, and it was set out plainly at the launch. Colonel Oleh Shuvarskyi, head of the mine-action directorate at the Defense Ministry, argued the research should draw on operational and technical data and analyze the specific threats of the Russia-Ukraine war.
"Ukraine faces unprecedented challenges," he said, urging the study to account for contamination profiles across territories and Russia's use of new types of mines, munitions, disguised explosive objects, and improvised explosive devices.
Why does it matter for the world?
This is not the demining of a peace that has already arrived. It is a clearance happening while the mines are still being laid, against an adversary actively innovating in how it hides them.
That distinction is the reason the Ukrainian experience may matter beyond Ukraine.
Shuvarskyi pointed to the combat experience being accumulated, the effectiveness of innovative clearance technologies, their integration into training programs, and the interagency coordination between the Defense Ministry, the Armed Forces, the State Special Transport Service, the State Emergency Service, and mine-action operators, calling all of it a key factor in responding to contamination on this scale.
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