Ukraine Faces $40B, Decades-Long Battle With Unexploded Russian Mines

A swath of Ukraine twice the size of Kentucky may have been contaminated by mines and unexploded ordinance (UXO) in nearly 18 months of Russia's full-scale invasion, setting Ukrainians up for a generational challenge costing billions of dollars and claiming an untold number of lives.

"It's the heaviest landmine and UXO contamination we've seen in Europe since World War II," Mike Newton, the head of Europe for the HALO Trust mine clearing NGO, told Newsweek. "Last year we were able to draw comparisons with Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia, in the Western Balkans. But now, without a shadow of a doubt, it's the worst in Europe since World War II, and potentially even the greatest in the world."

The Ukrainian government has identified around 170,000 square kilometers—some 67,180 square miles—of potentially contaminated land. Even while Kyiv's troops push forward on the front line, Ukrainian authorities and their foreign partners are beginning a nationwide explosives clearance effort that might cost up to $40 billion and take a decade.

Kyiv has set a target to clear 80 percent of contaminated land within 10 years.

"That's certainly ambitious," Newton said. "Based on our experiences in the rest of the world, it is likely to take decades to make this an 'impact-free' country, where merely residual contamination allows life and livelihood to continue unhindered."

"In France and Belgium, they still talk about the 'Iron Harvest,' plowing fields and finding artillery shells that are 100 years old," Newton added, referring to the legacy of World War I in northwestern Europe. "Estimates vary, but with up to 60,000 artillery shells being fired per day, Ukraine is on that scale."

Anatoly Polkovnikov, a Ukrainian volunteer and the head of the Ukrainian Center for International Partnership NGO, told Newsweek that the Ukrainian cabinet's estimate of 35 years to completely demine Ukraine "looks realistic."

Expert estimates, Polkovnikov said, suggest "there are more than 1 million dangerous objects" spread over the affected area of Ukraine.

'Maim and Kill'

Ukrainian forces have now liberated around 50 percent of the territory occupied by Moscow's troops since February 2022. But everywhere Russian soldiers went, deadly residue remained.

Anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, boobytraps, improved explosive devices (IEDs) and unexploded munitions are among the dangers facing advancing Ukrainian soldiers, and the emergency workers and civilians who follow them.

"It's incredibly varied," Newton, who spoke with Newsweek shortly after returning from a stint in Ukraine, said of the threat profile in liberated regions. "It really speaks to—dare I say the ingenuity—which goes into the deliberate attempts to maim and kill."

The problem is getting worse as Russian forces dig into those areas they still hold.

"The contamination in the east and the south is very different to what we've been seeing in the north," Newton said. "What we're seeing is a steady evolution in the minelaying that has mirrored the intensity of the conflict itself, to the point where it is occurring on an industrial scale by the Russians.

"It is deliberate, it's planned, and with an outcome in mind: the denial of large amounts of Ukrainian land in an effort to destabilize the country, cripple the economy, and terrorize its population."

The HALO Trust has been working in Ukraine since 2015, operating in the eastern Donbas region of the country where Kyiv's troops have been battling pro-Russian separatists—organized, armed, and eventually reinforced by Moscow—since 2014. The full-scale invasion, Newton said, has prompted an evolution of Russian methods.

"Grenades and mines with trip wires are fairly standard," he said. "But we've started to see not just mines that have anti-lift devices, for example, either in-built or by design, but mines that have grenades placed under them, so when they're lifted and pulled the grenades go off.

"You've got anti-vehicle mines where, instead of a standard fuse that's designed to initiate under the weight of a vehicle, they're using an anti-personnel mine that a child can set off. You're seeing deliberate attempts to hinder clearance through such devices as well.

"With IEDs...we're seeing deliberate attempts to boobytrap everyday items, of buildings and villages where the Russians occupied. We saw this around Kyiv last year and in people who were too scared to go into their own homes. We saw it in Mykolaiv and Kharkiv when the Russians left, and I have no doubt we will continue to see such inhumane efforts in the future."

Newton said that during his recent visit to Mykolaiv—liberated in November 2022—there were "areas, on the one hand, where you've got very clearly defined lines, hundreds of anti-vehicle mines as far as the eye can see, either on or very near to the surface. And Kharkiv was quite similar in that respect; we found just over 6,500 anti-vehicle mines since April of this year. It's a staggering number."

"These mines on the surface are clearly defined and relatively straightforward to clear," he said. "Conversely, in those same areas, you've got areas where you've got tripwires, you've got anti-personnel mines, we're seeing PFM-1s—the so-called 'butterfly mines'—and you might have anti-vehicle mines thrown in there as well."

'No Silver Bullet'

Mine clearance is painstaking work. "There's no silver bullet to this problem with mines in Ukraine," Newton said.

"The best thing that can be done quickly is identifying those contaminated areas. All of a sudden, about 174,000 square kilometers—which has been mentioned over and over again, and which is a staggering area—can be boiled down into a percentage, maybe only 5 or 10 percent, that is actually contaminated and requires systematic clearance. Suddenly, the problem really becomes quite manageable."

Open-source data, drones and satellite imagery are all valuable tools, Newton said.

"Ultimately, really it relies on the bread and butter of people on the ground. It's going and seeing the ground themselves, speaking to witnesses of accidents—whether involving humans or animals—speaking to people who may have seen the mines themselves or seen them being laid," he said.

A mix of new equipment, more funding, and flexible government thinking will be required, Newton said. HALO Trust and other organizations, for example, are currently not legally allowed to use explosives to clear mines.

"The level of mining in Ukraine is on [an] industrial scale, and it needs an appropriate industrial solution to solve it," Newton said. "We're investing heavily in mechanized clearance, armored clearance equipment and techniques, and remote clearance techniques to make clearances as safe and as fast as possible.

"There's no magic solution to this in Ukraine in terms of equipment. The main thing that needs to happen—and it is happening, and it's happening very quickly—is that contamination mapping...When we're talking about [what] Ukraine really needs, it needs a vision. And it needs a clearly articulated strategy for dealing with this problem."

Necessity breeds innovation, and Ukrainian farmers have been creating their own mine clearance devices to speed up the process. "New high-tech developments appear in Ukraine every day," Polkovnikov said.

"We are very grateful to the international community and our foreign partners for their support. But given the scale of the problem, we need more equipment, technology and experienced specialists," he said. "After all, every day saved in demining is a life saved for civilians and children. Of course, this will all require funding."

In the meantime, casualties will occur. Ukraine's State Emergency Services are working to clear areas as fast as possible so that civilians can return, and so that farmers can again begin working their land. Polkovnikov said there are around 700 sappers currently serving, with 500 more undergoing training.

Ukraine's economic travails make it particularly important to clear agricultural areas.

"This is an urgent issue not only for post-war reconstruction but also right now," Polkovnikov said. "Large farms and agribusiness in general, which was one of the leading segments of the Ukrainian economy before the war, have suffered the most from the mines. Now a large amount of equipment and land is idle, and the Ukrainian economy is losing money and the budget is under-taxed."

Newton added: "It's a devastating truth about the impact of landmines that, ultimately, they force people to make that terrible choice: life or livelihood. It's important to make sure that demining as a whole is seen as an intrinsic part of recovery and reconstruction.

"As I said to the German foreign minister when she visited last October in Ukraine, you cannot rebuild a country on mined foundations," Newton said. "When that rebuilding will be possible, though, depends on battlefield developments. We're at the mercy of the ebb and flow of history in Ukraine.

"The war is still ongoing, and so any guess is a hostage to a change in military fortunes."