138 Ukrainian Defence Personnel Complete Demining Training Program Implemented by Mriya Aid

Supporting Ukraine in its Colossal Task of Clearing Deadly Ordnance

To understand the mine action and explosive ordnance disposal situation in Ukraine, Mriya Aid Board of Directors, Lesya Granger, Lubomyr Chabursky and Mark Paine took part in key international mine action events and conferences including UMAC2024, visited the Mine Action Training centre MAT Kosovo in May and October 2024, and met with dozens of Ukrainian government officials, international partners and mine action institutional donors.

We will share the results of these visits in this and subsequent Substack articles. As has always been done in the past at Mriya Aid, individual private donor funds collected through our website were not used to pay for these visits. The Mriya Aid team will continue to work to find resources to train Ukrainian sappers and mine action professionals to the highest standards. To help you support this training, we’ll be sharing their stories with you.

Since 2022, Mriya Aid has organized and found funding to train deminers and sappers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Special State Transport Service, the National Guard of Ukraine, the State Emergency Services of Ukraine, and the National Police of Ukraine. This training is a game changer, as it significantly improves professional skills, instils protocols for various contingencies, and provides graduates with the competence and self-confidence needed to work safely and efficiently in the field.

Last week a fifth group of Ukrainian defence personnel completed their 5-week training course in International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) in explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) at MAT Kosovo, bringing the total number of Ukrainians trained in Mriya Aid's 2024 EOD program to 138.  

The international gold standard of certification in humanitarian demining, IMAS ensures consistent practices for safety and efficiency in mine action across contexts. 

Nine Ukrainian sappers funded by Mriya Aid returned to Ukraine last week with 15 other Ukrainian demining professionals for deployment across Ukraine to safely and securely locate and remove unexploded ordnance from infrastructure, buildings, fields, forests and communities. This is the fifth group this year whose IMAS training and certification at MAT Kosovo was organized and paid for by Mriya Aid. They were preceded by 46 Ukrainian sappers who graduated in mid-September, 33 who completed the program in July, with another 31 graduates in May and 19 in April. 

This last group of nine completed IMAS Level 3 certification. The previous four groups trained in 2024 completed IMAS EOD Level 2 training and certification. 

Certification to IMAS Level 2 provides the knowledge and skills needed to identify, mark and help transport munitions together with a team of deminers. Level 3 provides graduates with the ability to work safely with a greater range of explosive remnants of war, and to work as an EOD team leader and site supervisor. 

In total, 138 personnel from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and state services working in EOD completed Mriya Aid's 2024 IMAS demining certification program.  Of these graduates, 11 are women. The support and close cooperation of the Main Department of Mine Action, Civilian Protection and Environmental Safety of the National Mine Action Authority of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine was indispensable to this demining train and equip program. 

“We work to make sure that Ukrainian mine action professionals come home to their families alive and without injury at the end of each work day or at the end of their deployment,” said Mriya Aid Chair Lesya Granger. 

The IMAS-compliant bespoke training courses are developed and delivered by Praedium Consulting Malta, a key player in providing humanitarian mine action and EOD training to deminers across the globe since 1999, and most recently, close to four hundred Ukrainians.  

The 2024 EOD program is the largest humanitarian mine action training program organized by Mriya Aid in the last three years. As part of this train and equip program, Ukrainian graduates who successfully completed the courses and passed the IMAS EOD Level 2 certification assessments and examinations are being equipped with demining PPE, detectors, toolkits, tripwire illuminators and other specialized gear for demining operations to be performed across Ukraine. Over half of the equipment was sourced locally in Ukraine. 

Recent estimates suggest that 10,000 deminers working for at least one decade are needed to release over 139,000 sq kms of land across Ukraine, which is potentially contaminated by explosives threats, with 6 million civilians at risk or unable to return to their homes. Drones, AI, and mechanical means can quickly survey larger tracts and confirm the absence of contamination. However, the remainder has to be cleared, most often by slow, methodical manual means. 

There is a world-wide shortage of certified mine action professionals with both military and humanitarian demining expertise. Since 2022, close to 400 Ukrainian men and women have been trained and certified at MAT Kosovo, with a significant portion of these being trained through Mriya Aid's EOD program.

Along with other areas of aid to Ukraine, Mriya Aid  advocates, finds funding, and implements mine action and humanitarian demining training programs to the highest levels of IMAS standards for Ukrainian men and women demining professionals.

Watch for our updated website in early November!

For the time being, here is our original website https://www.mriyaaid.ca/