Ukraine seeks global help with massive task of landmine clearance at Swiss meeting

By Emma Farge

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (Reuters) - Ukraine's prime minister appealed at a meeting in Switzerland on Thursday for more help clearing landmines and unexploded bombs covering up to a quarter of the country - the most mined nation in the world.

Switzerland, which is providing financial support, is hosting the conference this week attended by officials from around 50 countries to drum up funds for demining Ukraine set to cost $34.6 billion, according to a World Bank study.

Clearance is seen as a critical requisite for boosting agricultural production and for the return of millions of Ukrainians who have fled since Russia's Feb. 2022 invasion. Already, 399 civilians have been killed by landmines and 915 injured, according to U.N. human rights monitors.

"The scale of this challenge is truly massive," Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, told the meeting in the city of Lausanne. "I call on the entire civilised world to increase support for Ukraine in the field of demining."

He said the country's National Mine Strategy aimed to demine the country by 2033 but it needed help, especially with training 10,000 deminers and building machines which can clear terrain around 100 times faster than people.

"Ukraine has already started producing some of these machines but we need your support in this area," he said.

Swiss President Viola Amherd told the meeting that the country will deliver three more remote-controlled machines from Swiss-based Global Clearance Solutions.

U.S. representative, Stanley Brown, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for political and military affairs, said Washington was considering additional demining partnerships with Ukraine.

"The United States is prepared and will stand with you to see this through," he said.

The meeting showcases new equipment and techniques such as the demining machines as well as AI-powered robots and drones.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is already supporting Kyiv with such efforts involving drones equipped with AI-powered sensors for land surveys which can pick up even tiny, camouflaged "petal mines".

Already, such techologies have reduced the estimated contaminated area in Ukraine by about 18,000 square km to 139,000 in the past year, said UNDP's Ukraine representative Jaco Cillers. Some areas are not yet eligible for humanitarian demining since they are too close to the front line and are being cleared by Ukraine's army.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, Editing by Angus MacSwan)