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Daria Zhydkova is working with her team to demine Ukraine. Where to start? And who does this job?

Photo Credit: Christian Streili

Daria Zhydkova and 40 other Ukrainians were in Salzburg this week at the invitation of Salzburg Global Seminar. The 31-year-old works for Halo Trust, the world’s largest landmine clearance organization. Daria herself is not looking for mines, but donors.

This interview has been translated from German to English. The original article and video interview can be found at Salzburger Nachrichten.

Daria Zhydkova usually wakes up at least once a night in Kiev because of air-raid sirens. Run to the bunker which is 300 meters away? She thinks about how she must wake up early the next morning, rolls over, and tries to go back to sleep. Currently, she is only awakened by the honking of geese in the park of Schloss Leopoldskron. She is a participant of the Ukraine Civil Society Forum.

Salzburger Nachrichten (SN): Why have you already begun demining while the war is still raging on? Does that make any sense?
Daria Zhydkova: People’s safety cannot wait. The regions that do not border the front line must recover. Even before the end of the war. If we delay, there will be injuries and deaths. The extent of the mines is enormous. 30 percent of the Ukrainian land area must be assessed and searched for explosive remnants of war- that is an area twice the size of Austria. One of the nastiest things is anti-tank mines. They have a wire that points upward. When that [wire] is bent to the side, the mine explodes. It contains enough explosives to take out a tank. You can imagine what would happen if a civilian car drives over it.*

SN: How long would it take to demine a football field?
Daria: That depends very much on the types of explosives that can be found there. If several types are present, the matter is complex. How big is a soccer field? One deminer can clear nine to ten square meters per day. This kind of thing happens slowly. Our teams always work in groups of eight people, so about 80 square meters per day.

SN: If someone declares the area safe and the next day the fighting continues, how can you ever be safe?
Daria: When a rocket hits and lands on the surface, it does not take much time to remove it. But there are not many new [rockets] landing in liberated areas. There is a 20-kilometer zone to the border, where we don’t operate for security reasons. But everything else must work again. You cannot wait.** People must be able to use their land, walk and drive safely. It is essential so that Ukraine does not fall into an economic crisis. It is also important for people’s mental stability. Also, if someone in the family breaks down, the family slides into poverty.

SN: Where do you start?
Daria: We work in Kiev, in Chernihiv and in the Sumy Oblast in northeastern Ukraine. Also, in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv, the regions that have been liberated.

SN: Who wants to do this job? Can robots also demine?
Daria: It’s a good question, there is actually potential there. Detecting the mines is one thing but removing them safely is another. This still requires people. And yes, there are people who want to do this. We recruit many people from local communities. They have a lot of interest in increasing their own safety and that of their families. In addition, the opportunities to earn money are limited at the moment. This is one.

SN: How much training is needed?
Daria: We offer three weeks of training. No previous military experience is needed. 

SN: But plenty of rest.
Daria: The work is exhausting.*** You must be both physically and mentally fit. You have to be able to follow safety regulations and be disciplined.

SN: Why does it take an NGO like yours for demining? Wouldn’t this be the responsibility of the government?
Daria: At this scale, the government is not in a position to undertake the task. Humanitarian demining is different from spot clearance after a missile has hit. That is something usually done by the government. But clearing away everything that is lying around is the responsibility of specialized companies or NGOs like Halo Trust, where I work. The government provides coordination for these partners and keeps track of and defines who operates where.****

SN: You live in Kiev where there is a constant threat of danger. How do you find moments to relax and calm yourself down?
Daria: Going to the park, going to the bar. In Kiev, the bars are actually open. I spend time with my family, with creativity, and travel within the country- it is still possible to move between regions. Anything that is beautiful helps. A good recovery strategy is to look at a painting. That is only possible now to a certain extent because the museums have moved their works into the bunkers. But if there is a pop-up gallery, you can go there and look at something beautiful.

Following publication, Daria wished to clarify some of the remarks attributed to her. We have listed them below.

* This is not a direct quote of what I said but an interpretation which mentions details that are technically wrong about the anti-vehicle mines. The message from my side was that the anti-vehicle mines account are laid in high numbers, and they account for the majority of civilian casualties in Ukraine at the moment, according to the data we have compiled. I also mentioned that some of these mines require special caution removing, as they are laid with anti-lifting devices (which make a mine detonate once moved). I also recall that I mentioned anti-personnel mines laid with tripwires, which are highly sensitive and easily triggered and are, sadly, very common, and many of these can be found in densely contaminated areas.

** What I said was slightly different from what reads in the paragraph. I said that there are not many explosive items that land in the areas outside [the] immediate frontline, and they don't require a massive amount of time to clear - for example, if there is a missile strike, it means that only that item will need to be removed.

*** I said that the work is physically demanding. [I'm] not sure what German word was used, but I certainly used a different way to phrase the message.

**** The message I passed is that the scale of contamination is massive at the moment, and the non-government agencies like mine have stepped in to offer support while the government services (not the government itself) are engaged in immediate clearance of the explosive items posing the highest threat. Humanitarian mine clearance (which HALO and other similar organisations are doing) is quite slow.