An International Donor Conference on Humanitarian Demining of Ukraine was held in Zagreb, Croatia
Ukraine’s goal is to minimize the social and economic impact of contamination of our territories by mines and unexploded ordnance over the next 10 years. This was stated by the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine - Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Svyridenko during her speech at the conference.
As Yulia Svyridenko noted, Ukraine understands the unprecedented scale of the threat. Currently, our country is the most potentially mine-contaminated country in the world since the Second World War. A third of the territory of our country, which covers up to 174 thousand square kilometers, is potentially under threat. More than 6 million people are at risk. The number of incidents has already reached 500. If the problem is not effectively addressed, the number of landmine victims could reach more than 9,000 by 2030.
As the Minister of Economy, I understand very well: without demining, we will not be able to fully launch our economy. Therefore, demining is the zero point of the recovery of our country and its economy," Yuliya Svyridenko said.
According to the results of the first day, the participants of the event generally confirmed the commitment to help our state in this area for almost 500 million euros, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Croatia, Davor Božinović, said.
"34 participating states expressed their clear political support for Ukraine in the field of mine action and supported their political commitments... The total amount of these contributions is almost half a billion euros," he said at the briefing.
We will remind that the participants of the First International Donor Conference on Humanitarian Demining in Ukraine, which is taking place in Croatia, were representatives of more than 40 foreign countries - ministers of defense, foreign affairs, ambassadors and heads of foreign organizations.