Ukraine's Mine Crisis: How Drones and AI Are Reshaping Demining

Olena Kabanova kneels in a weedy field in eastern Ukraine, shovel in hand, excavating carefully around a spot her mine detector has flagged. The 58-year-old works methodically, carving out a neat square of earth. Four years ago, Russian soldiers occupied this land. Now it belongs to Ukraine again, but the ground beneath her is studded with landmines—thousands of them, scattered across territory reclaimed at terrible cost. Her job is to make it safe again, one patch at a time.

Ukraine has become the world's most mine-contaminated country, a distinction earned through years of grinding conflict and, increasingly, through the proliferation of drone-delivered munitions. The scale of contamination has grown so rapidly that Paul Heslop, the programme manager for mine action at the United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine, compares it to the cluster munition campaigns the Americans conducted along the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War. Both sides of the conflict now deploy long-range drones with devastating precision, and each strike leaves behind not just immediate casualties but a legacy of unexploded ordnance that will render land unusable for years.

The hazards facing deminers have evolved alongside the weapons. Russian forces have deployed the POM-3, a small cylindrical mine that resembles an abandoned vacuum flask and detonates from the vibrations of approaching footsteps. Anda Riza, a unit commander with the Halo Trust—the largest international humanitarian demining organization working in Ukraine—says certain villages have become so contaminated with these mines that her teams simply avoid them entirely. The threat landscape keeps shifting. Humanitarian workers face not only the mines themselves but direct attacks from drones and missiles. The work that was already dangerous has become more so.

Yet from this crisis has emerged technological innovation that offers genuine hope for acceleration. Kabanova's traditional method—digging out a suspicious patch by hand—takes up to forty-five minutes. A new machine called the DMR-7, a small tank-like vehicle equipped with a high-pressure compressed air system, can accomplish the same work in five minutes. An operator stands at a safe distance, controlling the machine remotely, and watches as it blasts away soil with mechanical force. The Halo Trust is experimenting with an array of other technologies: AI-powered image analysis, ground-penetrating radar, and devices that can detect explosive material rather than just metal. Drones and satellite imagery, analyzed with artificial intelligence, have replaced binoculars and maps for surveillance work that would have taken weeks just four years ago.

The funding has followed the urgency. Since the full-scale invasion began, $1.5 billion has flowed into Ukraine's demining sector. The Halo Trust alone spent nearly £50 million in the year ending March 2025—nearly double the Ukrainian state's annual budget of £28.6 million for clearing agricultural land of mines and unexploded ordnance. Yet money and technology cannot overcome structural dysfunction. Responsibility for demining is fragmented across multiple government agencies and dozens of overlapping organizations. Attempts to reform the country's mine action law have stalled. Ihor Bezkaravainyi, a deputy economy minister overseeing demining policy, wants to consolidate oversight into a single cabinet-level office, but progress has been glacial. When asked why, he offers a weary explanation: bureaucrats resist losing authority. One sector worker put it more bluntly—the biggest barrier to demining Ukraine is the Ukrainian government itself.

Regulatory barriers compound the problem. Health and safety standards require that demining vehicles be operated remotely rather than driven directly by a person in the cab. Riza acknowledges that remote operation is significantly slower than having an operator on board, and this remains their biggest operational challenge. Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities cast their contamination net broadly, classifying land as mine-affected simply because Russian forces occupied it—an approach that risks wasting resources clearing areas that may never have been seeded with explosives. Paul Heslop argues the distinction matters: occupation does not automatically mean contamination. Land is only contaminated if it contains explosives.

Despite these obstacles, deminers across the sector believe technological advances will fundamentally accelerate their work. Heslop describes the current moment as the most significant transformation in humanitarian mine action in thirty years. The machines are faster. The AI is sharper. The drones can see what human eyes cannot. But the machines still need operators, the algorithms still need oversight, and the land still needs to be cleared before Ukraine's richly fertile soil can feed its people again. The technology is ready. The question now is whether the institutions can move fast enough to use it.