On March 12, 2024, specialists of NIBULON’s demining department obtained three new certificates in the areas of technical survey, manual demining, and combat area clearance. These certificates enable NIBULON’s deminers to carry out the demining of Ukrainian land. At the same time, we continue gaining certification in demining with the use of machines and mechanisms to start clearing the land with GCS-200 demining machines, received with the help of the German Development Bank DEG Impulse gGmbH, a subsidiary of DEG.
Our specialists have gained a multi-level certification procedure conducted by the Mine Action Center under the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which was concluded with a visit of representatives of the MAC – the head and senior engineer of the Department of Certification of Mine Action Operators – to conduct an on-site assessment.
An assessment was conducted to ensure compliance with the standards of national legislation regarding the presence of necessary documentation, equipment, including the equipment of the emergency medical vehicle, adherence to mine action processes, and the competence of deminers.
Based on the results of the visit of MAC representatives and considering the previous stages of certification, the Mine Action Center of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine decided that our deminers have successfully earned certification to perform three humanitarian demining processes. NIBULON, as the first Ukrainian agricultural holding and a humanitarian demining operator, has received an official state document allowing it to conduct technical survey (TS), manual demining (MD), and combat area clearance (CAC).
Maksym Sovietkin, head of demining department at NIBULON, noted,
“This is a very important moment for us because the certification required significant efforts of the entire team. Now, thanks to painstaking work and the help of partners, NIBULON is ready to provide demining services to everyone at cost. However, are Ukrainian farmers and landowners ready to pay for these services? If we are talking about NIBULON’s lessors, everything is simple here. Demining is part of our cooperation offer. The rest requires financial assistance. We must enlist the support of donors or develop a transparent mechanism for compensating the costs to commercial players by the state to help farmers restore land cultivation and accordingly supply grain to global markets.”
We would remind you that NIBULON now has the right to carry out humanitarian demining activities, covering four processes: non-technical survey, technical survey, manual demining, and combat area clearance.
The technical survey certificate allows for the search for explosive objects in potentially contaminated areas identified due to the non-technical survey, and to confirm or deny the presence of explosive objects. The manual demining certificate allows for the clearance of minefield where possible, and the combat area clearance certificate allows for the clearance of land where hostilities were directly conducted.
NIBULON has also completed machine demining training from the Swiss company GCS and is obtaining certification at the Mine Action Center under the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to conduct demining with the use of machines and mechanisms. The mechanical demining certificate will allow us to demine up to 10,000 square meters of Ukrainian land per day with one machine. By the end of 2024, NIBULON will have received four GCS-200 demining machines.
