265 Ukrainian civilians killed by mines since onset of Russia's full-scale invasion

This was reported by Lieutenant Colonel Pavlo Vozniuk, Deputy Head of the Department for Planning, Organization and Coordination of Mine Action of the Center for Mine Action, at a briefing at the Military Media Center.

According to him, 265 civilian Ukrainians were killed and 587 were injured.

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He called for strict adherence to mine safety rules. Thus, one should not ignore the signs "Dangerous mines!", "Stop mines!", red flags on the ground. All of this warns that the territories are contaminated with explosive objects, Vozniuk reminded.

Mine-clearing efforts in Ukraine

In March, the UNDP said that the area of mined territory in Ukraine is 4.5 times the size of Switzerland.

In August, Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy said that they hoped to clear 80% of the land in 10 years and return it to use.

The same month, Ukraine's first domestically produced machine for preparing soil for mine-clearing received a certificate of conformity. This development allows for the effective neutralization of anti-personnel and detection of anti-tank mines.

On September 22, the Ukrainian Prime Minister announced that Ukraine would launch a market for humanitarian mine-clearing services through Prozorro, an electronic public procurement system.

In October, pyrotechnics inspected over 22,000 hectares of agricultural land. In total, 234,759 hectares of land have been inspected since the beginning of the year, of which almost 178,000 hectares have been returned to economic use. The Ministry of Economy called this a great result.

On November 6, Ukraine received 6 DIGITAL VANGUARD-S robotic systems from Canada to help rescuers remotely defuse explosive ordnance.