Ukraine has started disposing of its anti-personnel mine stockpiles

The first batch of these prohibited munitions was incinerated in a special oven at the Pavlohrad Chemical Plant (PCP). Ukraine carries out disposal of anti-personnel mines in accordance with the Ottawa Convention and receives assistance in the convention’s implementation from the NATO member countries as part of the alliance’s Partnership for Peace program. The PCP’s director-general Leonid Shyman disclosed at a press conference that Norwegian funding had enabled his company to complete upgrading thermal oven for destroying munitions, allowing it to employ afterburning and neutralize combustion products. The oven, which was built using domestically-developed technology, can dispose of 1.2 million anti-personnel mines per year. With the upgrade completed, Ukraine can proceed with actual implementation of the international agreements on the issue. Ukraine and Germany signed an agreement in 2012, calling for 167,000 mines to be disposed of. Germany provides 40 percent of funding as part of her NATO membership obligations, 50 percent of funding is to come from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, and the remaining 10 percent will be provided by the PCP itself. Shyman noted that this lot of mines would be disposed of over the next two and a half months. Overall, Ukraine owns about 6 million anti-personnel mines, and half of them are to be disposed of before the end of 2015. The director-general remarked that his company’s engineers had created unique ordnance disposal technology. After incinerating mines in a special oven, combustion products are then neutralized, while the substances that remain can be reused. “No other company is able to solve the disposal problem in this way, not just in Ukraine or the post-Soviet countries, but in the entire world. Our technology is safe for both humans and the environment, and most importantly, we go beyond mere disposal, allowing for some resources to flow back into the nation’s economy,” he explained.