Ireland should be increasing support for a UN agency training mine clearance specialists in Ukraine, according to an Irish expert.
David McMahon, head of the mine action unit at the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), started working in the area of demining in Cambodia during the early 1990s.
UNOPS is tasked with delivering a variety of projects for other UN agencies around the world, including the Mine Action Service.
In Ukraine, UNOPS is primarily working on improving the state’s capacity to carry out demining.
Its operations in the region are funded by France, the UN Development Project and the Netherlands.
Since hostilities in 2014, Ukraine has become one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
The National Mine Action Authority (NMAA) estimates that more than a third of Ukrainian territory is potentially contaminated with explosive ordnance as a result of the Russian invasion in 2022.
Mr McMahon said land mines are being used by both Ukraine and Russia in the conflict.
Based on data collected and on prior land release in 2023, the World Bank says the current total costs for the clearance of explosive ordnance across Ukraine are an estimated 34.6 billion dollars.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights says that as of January 15th this year, there were 339 civilian victims of mines and explosive remnants of war and 757 people were injured.
Clearing explosive hazards will be a prerequisite to the return of safe living in Ukraine after the war.
Mr McMahon, who also has experience in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Georgia and Sudan, said: “At the moment, we are training and equipping the bomb squad of the Ukrainian national police.
“They have 350 men and women that are out clearing munitions, clearing IEDs, clearing devices.
“They plan to scale up to about 1,500 personnel over the next year, and we’re helping them with that.”
UNOPS is also training Ukraine’s state transport service, a specialist unit of the defence ministry tasked with protection and construction of the national transportation system.
Mr McMahon said UNOPS is helping train and equip up to 480 deminers.
He said UNOPS works on humanitarian sites in areas of Ukraine which have been retaken from the Russian military and does not work within 20 kilometres of the frontline.
Asked about the scale of the task to clear mines and other explosives from all of Ukraine, Mr McMahon said the process will take years.
Mr McMahon, based in Kyiv, also said there is a “huge requirement” for prosthetics and orthotics due to injuries from mines and other explosives.
“There are world-class centres here but the scale of the problem is huge, it’s absolutely massive.”
Asked how demining has changed since he began in the early 1990s, Mr McMahon said the process in Cambodia relied on mass numbers of people, interviewing local residents about the contamination and carrying out a technical survey of the land.
He said equipment and processes around mine action have drastically improved.
“Drone technology has advanced greatly, artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced greatly. We’re using dogs, we’re using big tiller machines, we’re using IED robots – there’s a whole plethora of things.”
He said there are algorithms which can look at patterns in satellite photos of land and determine they are clear, for example if a field had been cultivated since hostilities ceased.
However, Mr McMahon cautioned: “The problem here is the scale – which is just massive.”
A further issue is a shortage of personnel for demining, due to the large numbers killed or fighting in the war as well as those displaced by the conflict.
Asked what the Government could do to support UNOPS, Mr McMahon said: “Ireland has world-class training facilities with the Irish Defences Forces. You cannot send people in here, however we can send people to Ireland for training.
“As a neutral state, Ireland does not support offensive military operations. However, we (UNOPS) work with the national police, we work with non-combatants. Everything we do is humanitarian and neutral.
“The Irish Defence Forces has been at the forefront of writing IED doctrine for the UN, that’s used in Somalia and Mali and elsewhere.
“Here in Ukraine, we have an IED problem and Ireland could really help with that.”
Mr McMahon argued that it would be “more sustainable” for Ireland to deal with the Ukrainian state in the area of demining, rather than NGOs.
He called for Ireland to support the training of the Ukrainian police’s bomb squad.
He also suggested Ireland could be involved in the production or procurement of required IED robots in Ukraine.
“This will be an intergenerational problem,” he said.
