The Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Denis Monastyrsky stated that after the end of the Russian invasion it will take years to neutralize unexploded ordnance, according to the Associated Press.
In an interview with AP, Monastyrsky said the country would need Western help to carry out a large-scale postwar venture.
“A huge number of shells and mines have been fired across Ukraine, and many of them have not exploded. They remain under debris and pose a real threat,” Monastyrsky said in Kyiv. “Disposing of them will take years, not months.”
In addition to Russian unexploded ordnance, Ukrainian troops planted mines on bridges, airfields and other key facilities to prevent Russians from using them.
“We will not be able to remove mines from this whole area, so I asked our international partners and colleagues from the European Union and the United States to prepare teams of experts to demine combat areas and targets,” Monastyrsky told AP. .
He noted that his ministry’s demining equipment had been left in Mariupol, a besieged port city with a population of 430,000, which had come under constant shelling for most of the war.
“We lost 200 pieces of equipment there,” Monastyrsky said.
According to the Minister, one of the biggest tasks facing the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine is to extinguish fires caused by continuous shelling and air strikes by Russia. According to him, the country’s emergency service, which is run by the ministry, is in dire need of staff and equipment.
“In the coming days, the humanitarian catastrophe in critical areas will deepen,” Monastyrsky said. “I must say that the civilian casualties are several times greater than our military losses.”