“The Accounting Chamber published the results of the audit on the humanitarian land demining. He testified that the current system is fragmentary, not effective enough and unable to respond to the extent of the mine threat. This is evidenced by the account of the Accounting Chamber. To delay in the work and returning to the circulation of agricultural land lead the shortcomings in the planning”, – WRITE ON: ua.news
The Accounting Chamber published the results of the audit on the humanitarian land demining. He testified that the current system is fragmentary, not effective enough and unable to respond to the extent of the mine threat.
This is evidenced by the account of the Accounting Chamber.
The delays in the work and return to agricultural land leads to the deficiencies in the planning of demining measures, the lack of a single normative procedure for the development of such plans, monitoring and reporting on their implementation, as well as poor coordination between responsible institutions. Without structural reform of the mine system, complete purification of land can be lasted for decades, and this is jeopardy of food safety and economic recovery of the country.
About a quarter of the territory of Ukraine – more than 13.9 million hectares, – the fighting was influenced.
Due to the pollution of explosive objects of 9.85 million hectares of agricultural land in 10 regions are inaccessible to safe use, and this It is almost a quarter of the area of all agricultural land of Ukraine.
At the same time, the restoration of the safe use of these lands, their inspection and demining, is carried out at a very low rate.
From 2022 to July 2025, it was exchanged in accordance with national standards in the field of humanitarian miner and returned to the use of 7.75 thousand hectares of agricultural land – only 0.08% of the area of contaminated agricultural land. Another 403 thousand hectares were returned to farmers in a simplified manner.
At such a rate, it will only be possible to completely clean agricultural lands in Ukraine from dangerous objects and return them into cultivation in about 83 years.
In addition, the mine pollution of Ukrainian lands has significant consequences for the economy and security.
According to the Institute of Global Changes Tony Blair and the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, the country loses about $ 11 billion in gross domestic product every year, and due to the inability to process the field exports of agricultural products has decreased by $ 4.3 billion annually.
According to the World Bank, more than $ 1.1 billion in the state budget is not received from tax revenues. At the same time, more than UAH 1.1 trillion is estimated by the State Inspectorate.
Land pollution is jeopardized by the well -being and the lives of millions of Ukrainian citizens, as approximately 6.4 million Ukrainians live on potentially contaminated explosive objects.
For many cultivation, land is a matter of survival, so despite their high risks, people continue to cultivate the lands. In 2022-2025, 191 agrarians were killed during the cultivation of agricultural land.
Organization of the mine process
The agricultural land miners in Ukraine were carried out by two types of demining:
– prompt demining. It is carried out by the units of security and defense forces in the framework of their powers in terms of emergency response to ensure the safety of citizens. Identify, remove and destroy explosive objects. Operational demining does not imply issuing documents confirming land safety
– Humanitarian demining. Provides a complete cycle of mine processes – from non -technical examination to cleaning of territories and ends with a certificate of safe territory. It is carried out certified by various types of work by the operators of the mine activity (PMD).
In the process of agricultural land, state institutions, in particular, the State Emergency Service, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (Armed Forces of Ukraine, the State Special Service of Transport), and private certified mine operators (Halo Trust, NorWegian PEAPLY), MAG, MAG, MAG, MAG, MAG, MAG, DEMINE PEAPLANE (HALO TRUST).
The institutional mine management system remains imperfect, and two centers with identical legislatively defined powers operate as part of state bodies. Their actual activity differs:
– Center for Mine Activities at the Ministry of Defense, which provides planning, organization and coordination of mine activity, informing the population, as well as conducts training and certification of miners;
– Humanitarian Demand Center under the Cabinet of Ministers Secretariat, which processes the applications of farmers for humanitarian demining. The auditors have found that there is no coordination between them, which leads to inefficient tasks.
In addition, the general coordination is carried out by the national mine activity body and the interagency working group on humanitarian demining. The authorities are advisory and have no enforcement, and this contradicts the international standards of IMAS and reduces the efficiency of the system.
Imperfect planning
In 2023-2024, humanitarian demining/purification from explosive objects was carried out immediately in two parallel directions of planning:
– Demining (humanitarian demining) plans/ examination and purification from explosive agricultural land, which were created to organize the survey and purification of agricultural land for the purpose of sector and defense sector. At the same time in 2023 the plan formed the SES on behalf of the first Viceremier-Minister-Minister of Economy and by MRG; And in 2024 – the Ministry of Agrarian Policy based on generalized data from OVA.
– the plans for demining the de -industrial territories, which were performed by mine operators, covered all identified / polluted territories identified, including agricultural land, but were not separated into a separate category.
Both types of plans were approved by the National Mine Activities, headed by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine.
As of the beginning of 2025, the procedure for the development, monitoring, reporting and control of such plans was not normatively defined, and the criteria for priority of tasks are enshrined only in the plans themselves. This was the inclusion in the plan of non -priority or already surveyed areas.
From the total area of polluted and inaccessible to the cultivation of agricultural lands (in the 10 most affected regions of Ukraine) the plans of miners, which were performed by security and defense for 2023-2024, were covered by 8% (790.89 thousand g and). Due to regulatory non -regulation, reporting on the implementation of these mine plans, including agricultural land, and only generalized operational information was formed.
In Ukraine, the records of the implemented activities are carried out in the IMSMA CORE system, and the humanitarian demining data there is submitted by certified mine operators, while the SES provides information on prompt response separately.
As a result, these data ranges exist in parallel without integrating with each other and with the State Land Data.
Disconnection complicates the analysis, slows down decisions and is the reason for the re -inclusion in the plans of land demining, which have already been completed.
Lack of personnel and equipment
In the audit process, it was found that during 2022-2024 more than 91 % of land survey and demining works were carried out in Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense. Due to restricted access to territories or lack of equipment and staff, the land mine process was delayed. For example, in 2023, 60% of the plans were examined in 2023, of which only about two -thirds were cleared. In 2024, the figures increased slightly – up to 89% of the purified.
The reason for the records, in particular, was the low level of personnel and technical support of the relevant demining units. Thus, the Ministry of Defense is provided with only 79%, and in the SES – by 68%. At the same time, the level of technical support of such units is also low-only 55-75%.
The supply of humanitarian demining equipment, which was funded at the expense of the Japanese Agency for International Cooperation (JICA), in 2023–2024, as of January 1, 2025, in fact, was only 35% of the volume provided by grant agreements. Due to the delays in registration of documents, some of the received equipment is not put into operation, and this additionally holds back the pace of demining works.
As of January 1, 2025, 73 mine operators (private and state) were officially registered in Ukraine – 2.6 times more than a year earlier. However, only 24 operators, including four state structures, were carried out on humanitarian demining.
They managed to make only 9% of the total amount of work performed. Most operators have certification only for manual mine, and the full range of permits only have four of them.
Personnel capabilities also remain limited. According to the audit, there are about 1.7 thousand sappers in these organizations, which is critically not enough for the systemic coverage of contaminated territories.
Despite the increase in the number of PMD operators, the real volume of work performed remains extremely limited, which is one of the key factors that inhibit the process of returning land to farmers.
International assistance
Ukraine receives and plans to receive significant donor support in the future to mine their lands. The total amount of assistance for these goals is currently over $ 1 billion (the amount includes and planned funds from 2022 to 2028). Among the largest donors are the United States, Switzerland and the European Union.
At the same time, the funds do not come to the State Budget, the Government of Ukraine does not have data on the process of spending and goals, but the funds are directed by donors directly to the operators of mine activity, such as Halo Trust, Norwegian People’s AID, MAG, Demining Solutions and others.
The lack of state control over the use of donor funds creates the risks of inefficient and opaque use of international assistance and duplication of costs.
Demining compensation
In 2024, a new budget program “Compensation for expenses for humanitarian agricultural land” began operating. Initially, it was planned to allocate UAH 3 billion, but as a result, only UAH 434.5 million was allocated.
The audit of the Accounting Chamber has shown that the mechanism of compensation for the expenses for humanitarian agricultural land agricultural land is too complicated and bruised. No agrarian compensation for the work performed by April 2024.
As a result, the auditors stated the almost zero result of the program in 2024 – the actual purification and return of land under compensation agreements during this period did not occur.
As of July 2025, only 2.55 thousand hectares were exchanged, ie less than 0.5% of hazardous territories and 26.9% of the area for all contracts concluded in 2024.
The return of land to use
Until the mid -2024 of the procedure for transferring purified lands to the farmers as a result of their humanitarian mine, there were delays in this process.
Therefore, in the period 2022–2024, private operators cleared 21 thousand hectares, and returned to farmers from only 5.25 thousand hectares. For comparison in the same period, more than 598 thousand hectares were surveyed by the security and defense sector, of which 403 thousand hectares were returned to the processing of farmers in a simplified manner.
Recommendations
Humanitarian demining is one of the key factors of economic recovery and Ukraine’s food security. It is about life for human health and agricultural recovery, and this is the basis of economy stability and an important element of world food stability.
That is why the efficiency of land purification and transparent use of resources are of critical importance for both Ukraine and international partners.
In order to eliminate the identified deficiencies, the Accounting Chamber has provided a number of recommendations to control:
– to introduce uniform rules for the formation, approval and reporting on demining plans to ensure objective selection of priority plots;
– integrate information systems of all entities into a single register to avoid duplication of work and accelerate planning;
– to update the mechanism of compensation for the expenses for humanitarian agricultural land, clearly defining the directions of use of funds, simplifying administrative procedures and providing the legally regulated mechanism of reserving funds in the accounts of the chief manager or lower level manager;
– ensure that grant funds are reflected in budget accounting and approve the national accounting standard (standard) in the public sector “security” for correct display of reserves;
-to optimize the institutional management system, creating a single demining coordinator in accordance with international standards.
The audit results were sent to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and information in the form of a government decision and published on the site of the Accounting Chamber.
Recall that Italy is looking at the opportunity to send a group of sappers to Ukraine to mine the de -industrial territories and seas.
Recall that Turkey is ready to join at least the post -war demining of the Black Sea. Ankara also considers the departure of the military to Ukraine as part of security guarantees.
We will remind, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky reported that Turkey expressed his willingness to be part of security guarantees for Ukraine.
Despite the desire of the Russian Federation, China may not provide Ukraine with security guarantees because of limited resources and unwillingness to create a precedent.
The Commander -in -Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed that Ukrainian military together with Western partners are developing a military component of post -war security guarantees.
