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STORY: UN / MINES UKRAINE
TRT: 05:02
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 05 JUNE 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN headquarters
05 JUNE 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Heslop, Senior UN Mine Action Adviser to the Resident Coordinator and UN Country Team in Ukraine (UNMAS):
“Why are mines or unexploded elements in Ukraine important and relevant? Well, every person in this room, every person in this city, every person in this country, and every person on this planet is paying more for their food and more for their energy because of the conflict in Ukraine. And the ability to get land back into use, that will bring down those prices is dependent on the actual presence of mines and other unexploded devices - and the actual presence. So, you've got the presence and the perceived presence, and actually, probably for every actual mine or for every square meter that is contaminated, you've probably got in excess of 100 square meters that isn't. So, for us to change the way we work in Ukraine and to make ourselves more effective is key. But by doing that and making it work properly, we will affect every person on this planet by bringing down the price of food and global food security and hopefully making the world a slightly better place.”
4. Med shot, journalist
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Heslop, Senior UN Mine Action Adviser to the Resident Coordinator and UN Country Team in Ukraine (UNMAS):
“So what is the problem? 20 per cent of the country is suspected of having some level of contamination. What that amount is - hard to say. But over 6 million people now live near hazardous areas.”
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Heslop, Senior UN Mine Action Adviser to the Resident Coordinator and UN Country Team in Ukraine (UNMAS):
“Assessing over 30,000 square kilometers of land that may have been contaminated, actually wasn't contaminated and could be used and could be returned for agricultural production. That is the equivalent of 20 times the current problem in Afghanistan. So that was done for cents on the square meter - or fractions of cents on the square meter - by adopting new technology and thinking in a new way to solve and to look at solutions for this problem: how we address the perception of contamination.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Heslop, Senior UN Mine Action Adviser to the Resident Coordinator and UN Country Team in Ukraine (UNMAS):
“The thing is, demining or mine clearance is an inherently inefficient process. I've cleared thousands of mines. I've worked in many countries. But if I could have just spent the time clearing the land that had the mine in it, I would have been a lot more efficient. Unfortunately, I've probably spent 95 per cent of my time or more clearing land that doesn't have mines in it, because you don't know exactly where the mines are. So one of the things that we're trying to do is use the different techniques and the different technologies that are available - each of which get progressively more assured but also more expensive.”
10. Med shot, journalist
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Heslop, Senior UN Mine Action Adviser to the Resident Coordinator and UN Country Team in Ukraine (UNMAS):
“The scale of the problem in Ukraine is so big - it is going to be billions of dollars. Now the question is: is it going to be single-digit billions of dollars, or is it going to be tens or hundreds of billions of dollars? Ukraine already has, you know, quite a problem with debt, and there's an awful lot of recovery that will be needed. So, everything we can do that makes demining and mine clearance and bomb disposal in Ukraine more efficient will ultimately - when the grant money stops - save Ukraine from having to borrow funds unnecessarily. Which will mean that that money can be spent on building hospitals and schools and creating employment - and not on clearing land doesn't have any contamination in it.”
12. Med shot, journalist
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Heslop, Senior UN Mine Action Adviser to the Resident Coordinator and UN Country Team in Ukraine (UNMAS):
“Good levels of data integration. Ukraine is a very digitized society. Everything is done on QR codes and Apple Pay. So, it's a very digital and tech-savvy society - lots of layers of data that can be integrated. So, one of the things we were looking at is looking at cell phone data to see if people have been going up and down roads. And if they haven't been going up and down roads, maybe that road is contaminated. Or if we're trying to send survey teams out - identifying the number of people who live in an area, and are there a lot of returns, a lot of IDPs or refugees going back to that area - so that we can target the resources that we need to be there to make it safe as quickly as possible. So, integrating different levels of technology, different levels of data, and non-traditional sources of data to try and make sure our programs are as effective as possible.”
14. Wide shot, press briefing room
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Paul Heslop, Senior UN Mine Action Adviser to the Resident Coordinator and UN Country Team in Ukraine (UNMAS):
“The war's been going on for about 1,200 days. If we say 10,000 rounds were fired a day -which is not that many, when the numbers actually reported are four or five times that on some days - that’s 12 million rounds of ammunition that have been fired. If we have a 10 per cent fail rate, that’s 1.2 million unexploded bombs. Some of the ammunition that’s been used is very old and has been stored for a very long time, so we're looking at up to a 40 per cent fail rate. So if we say a base figure of 10 per cent, that’s 1.2 million items. But if you say 40 per cent fail rate, that's about 5 million items. And if you say you find just twice as much as I’ve said - which is a low estimate - you’re up to 10 million unexploded bombs in Ukraine in the last three years. That is going to be a lot of work, and it’s going to need to be resourced, and we’re going to need to address it.”
16. Wide shot, end of press briefing
The widespread presence of landmines and unexploded ordnance in Ukraine is not just a national crisis, but a global one, warned a senior UN official today (05 June) linking the contamination to rising global food and energy costs.
“Every person in this room, every person in this city, every person in this country, and every person on this planet is paying more for their food and more for their energy because of the conflict in Ukraine,” said Paul Heslop, the UN’s Senior Mine Action Adviser in Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters in New York, Heslop stressed that restoring contaminated land to productive use could ease the burden on global markets. “The ability to get land back into use, that will bring down those prices, is dependent on the actual presence of mines and other unexploded devices,” he said, emphasizing the need to challenge both the physical and perceived risks of contamination.
About 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory is suspected to be contaminated, Heslop said, affecting more than six million people who now live near hazardous areas.
The scale of the issue is unprecedented. Heslop noted that 30,000 square kilometers of land once believed contaminated were found to be safe and could now return to agricultural production -“the equivalent of 20 times the current problem in Afghanistan,” he said. These assessments were achieved at low cost by “adopting new technology and thinking in a new way.”
Demining, he added, is “an inherently inefficient process,” with 95 percent of clearance efforts often spent on land that turns out to be safe. “You don't know exactly where the mines are,” Heslop said, underscoring the urgency of adopting more accurate and cost-effective strategies.
With the cost of cleanup likely to reach billions of dollars, he warned of long-term economic consequences. “Is it going to be single-digit billions of dollars or is it going to be tens or hundreds of billions?” he asked.
Ukraine’s digital infrastructure could be a vital asset in this effort. Heslop praised the country’s tech-savvy approach, including using mobile data to assess road usage and track returning populations. “Integrating different levels of technology, different levels of data, and non-traditional sources of data” can help target mine action efforts more effectively, he said.
He also underscored the sheer volume of unexploded ordnance. Based on conservative estimates, Heslop said that up to 10 million unexploded bombs may remain across Ukraine. “That is going to be a lot of work, and it’s going to need to be resourced, and we’re going to need to address it.”
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