How the compensation program works: strategy, priorities and challenges
12.05.2025
RECORDING_HERE Director of the Humanitarian Demining Center Volodymyr Bayda on Radio Kyiv 98 FM
Director of the Humanitarian Demining Center, Volodymyr Bayda, spoke on Radio Kyiv 98 FM about the strategy of the program for compensation for the demining of agricultural lands.
Why agricultural land?
"We started with agricultural lands, precisely because they are the simplest, and it is most understandable how to return them to productive use as quickly as possible. Because, if we talk about fields and, for example, infrastructure facilities, here - the field has been demined, and the farmer is already working on it. If even the agrarian does not have enough funds, at the expense of organizations such as FAO, World Food Program, you can find donor funding for sowing material, for equipment," Volodymyr Bayda emphasized.
At the same time, as the Director of the Center noted, infrastructure facilities – schools, hospitals, factories – are much more complex, because in addition to demining, it is often about their subsequent restoration, which requires significantly more resources and time. That is why agricultural lands have become a logical start for a large national program. However, preparation for more complex areas for demining is important now.
Innovations and technologies in demining
When it comes to such high-tech processes as remote demining, the main problem is sensors.
"The equipment that we see at exhibitions, yes, it works on a clean field. However, we understand that a field that has not been used for the third or fourth year, or maybe even the tenth, is no longer a field, but a forest. Unfortunately, there is very little equipment with really high levels of sensors, and there are few such copters, and for now it has to be taken somewhere not in Ukraine, but abroad. Therefore, the R&D stage is currently underway in this area, as many teams as possible are working on it," Volodymyr Bayda explained.
In response, the Center, together with the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, is working on the development of a unified register of potentially mined/mined territories, a cross-platform mine action management system, based on Palantir software.
The Director of the Center noted: "About this part of the work, not about hardware, but, let's say, about some highly intellectual things, I can say that it is currently lacking not because there is no money for it, but because it is only now taking the first steps in its development. This is a kind of "zero stage" when manufacturers and designers adapt equipment to the realities of Ukraine - not imaginary scenarios of Afghanistan or Cambodia, but our specific fields, forests and infrastructure."