(KYIV, UKRAINE) – A total of 210 hectares of agricultural land were made safe and returned to productive use during July through Ukraine’s state compensation programme for demining. The work was carried out by mine action operators, according to the Ministry of Economy and Environment.
The clearance was completed under the state budget programme for humanitarian demining. Two agreements for clearing agricultural land were fulfilled in the month. Operators received 13.2 million Ukrainian hryvnia, which is approximately 345,000 US dollars or 270,000 British pounds, for the completed tasks.
The average cost of clearing one hectare in July stood at 62,900 hryvnia, equal to about 1,645 US dollars or 1,290 British pounds.
Work is currently ongoing under 43 contracts covering agricultural plots totalling roughly 11,700 hectares. A further 100 contracts have already been fully executed. This has allowed 16,410 hectares of land to be returned to use. The total cost of these completed works exceeds 966.2 million hryvnia, which is around 25.3 million US dollars or 19.8 million British pounds.
In July, the Humanitarian Demining Centre signed an additional 14 agreements for clearing agricultural land covering an area of more than 1,400 hectares. The expected cost of these works is about 170 million hryvnia, roughly 4.4 million US dollars or 3.5 million British pounds.
The humanitarian demining programme receives its funding through the Ukraine Facility Plan, a financial support instrument provided by the European Union.
As part of the signed agreements, the Humanitarian Demining Centre also began clearing land owned by the State Land Bank. Three plots with a total area of almost 1,300 hectares are located in the Kharkiv region. Another plot of 606 hectares is in the Mykolaiv region.
Additionally, the centre signed contracts for the demining of land owned or leased by private households. These plots range in size from 1.7 hectares to over 73 hectares.
Separately, demining units from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence cleared 923 hectares of territory liberated from Russian occupation forces during July.
