Ukraine's landmine crisis is driving a new wave of demining technology

The article highlights the critical challenge Ukraine faces in reclaiming land contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnance following the large-scale conflict. Vast areas of farmland, residential zones, and infrastructure corridors remain unsafe, posing ongoing risks to civilian lives and hindering economic recovery and reconstruction efforts. Demining is essential for restoring agriculture, enabling displaced families to return, and allowing infrastructure repairs to proceed. Ukraine’s situation is unprecedented in modern Europe, with delays in clearance directly causing economic losses, prolonged displacement, and casualties. To address this, a new wave of “post-conflict recovery technology” is emerging, integrating drones, advanced sensors, robotics, and data processing to improve the speed, safety, and efficiency of mine detection. Broswarm, a Lithuanian startup led by CEO Ernestas Zvaigzdinas, is developing a drone-mounted synthetic-aperture radar system designed to detect buried threats, including plastic mines that traditional metal detectors miss. After extensive testing of various technologies such as drone-mounted metal detectors