At the end of June, one of the largest international organizations that clears Ukrainian lands of explosive objects announced a complete halt to its operations. The reason was the death of its employees during a Russian missile strike in the Kherson region. The decision was made in the midst of the summer season, when people are actively going out into the fields and forests, and the pace of clearance should be the highest. The situation has exposed two processes that will determine the future of demining activities in Ukraine – the physical danger to those who work near the front line, and the fragility of the financial model on which this sector has been based for the last four years.
What Happened in Kherson on June 24
The attack on the Norwegian People’s Aid team occurred on June 24 at around 12:50 local time in the Kherson region. All the dead and injured are citizens of Ukraine. Denis Butsnev and Ruslan Simonenko were killed: both joined the organization in July 2024 and began their careers in humanitarian demining together. Denis was from Dnipro, Ruslan was from Sumy region; the organization made their names and photos public with the consent of their families. Four other employees were injured, their condition is stable.
According to the data of the Kherson military administration, distributed through Ukrainian media, the team was hit by an Iskander-M rocket. The organization itself notes that it is continuing to verify this information and establish the full circumstances of the attack, as well as that there was no air raid alert at the time of the strike. Details are in the official statement of NPA and in the separate release in memory of the victims.
Norwegian People’s Aid suspended all demining operations in Ukraine immediately after the strike, and they remain on pause while the staff’s safety is being assessed. The organization has been working in Ukraine since 2022, is one of the top ten humanitarian actors in the country, and has 475 employees here. In addition to demining, it is also involved in the protection of civilians, food security, and the fight against gender-based violence.
Why the Pause Hits Communities
Summer is the peak season for demining activities: dry soil allows for mechanized processing, and agricultural work requires the return of fields to use. This is also the period when civilians are most likely to be on potentially hazardous territory – going out into the forests, mowing grass on the outskirts of villages, returning to abandoned plots. Each week of downtime means that a specific community will not receive a cleared area this year.
The scale of the queue is shown by official data. According to the results of humanitarian demining, more than 40,000 square kilometers of territory have already been returned to use, representatives of the Ministry of Defense reported at the Ukraine Mine Action Partner Coordination Workshop 2026 in Geneva. Ukraine’s priority there was called responsible management of threats in conditions of regular shelling and the risk of re-contamination of territories – that is, a situation where already cleared land becomes dangerous again after a new strike.
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Attacks on Humanitarian Workers Are Repeated
The June incident is part of a longer series. NPA Secretary General Raimond Johansen stated that such attacks are becoming more frequent and put both humanitarian workers and the people they work for at risk.
Operators have been recording this before. The Ukrainian Deminers Association recalls a strike in the Chernihiv region that hit employees of the Danish Refugee Council, and notes an increase in direct danger to humanitarian teams. Due to the escalation, the association itself was forced to leave part of the directions in Donetsk region, and the aggravation on individual sections of the front forced operators to postpone or completely stop work.
Money Ran Out Before Mines
Safety risks have been superimposed on the financial crisis of the sector. The most noticeable challenge was the reduction in funding from the United States, which has traditionally been a key donor to humanitarian demining: the temporary suspension of USAID and State Department programs caused pauses in the work of some operators, and not all of them subsequently restored their previous volumes. The consequences of this decision for the humanitarian sector in Ukraine are described in detail in the ACAPS report.
The pressure is felt throughout the humanitarian system. According to the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, 10.8 million people will need assistance, and 4.1 million are planned to be covered, of which 3.6 million are defined as priority by stricter selection criteria – that is, at least 6.7 million people may be left without help due to reduced funding and reorganization of activities. The full text of the plan is on the UNHCR website.
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Demining Is Being Rewritten in the Language of Investments
In response to the deficit of donor funds, an attempt was made to change the framework in which the sector asks for money. At the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026, the Minderoo Foundation and HALO Trust held a closed discussion Safe Ground, New Markets, where international financial institutions, donors, demining operators, business, and government discussed how to integrate land clearance into reconstruction programs and launch mechanisms that can accelerate the return of lands to safe use. Participants agreed that demining itself opens up opportunities for investment in agriculture, infrastructure, and community development, and HALO Trust Development Partnership Manager Bruce Edwards emphasized that this stage should be considered as the first step in the investment cycle. The continuation of the discussion is to be the UMAC conference in November in Brussels. The results of the meeting were published by the Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture.
This logic is clear to investors, but it is hindered by what happened near Novopetrivka. Capital requires predictability, and work near the front line does not provide it.
Plans for 2026 and Reality
This year’s priorities for the sector included more active movement towards clearing water areas and forest masses, and with the support of UNDP in Ukraine, the first interagency group of instructors for underwater demining was formed – the safety of waterways directly affects the work of ports and the logistics of grain exports. Another key direction was to be the improvement of technological processes, including methods of working with robotic complexes.
These plans are feasible as long as teams can safely go out into the field. The pause of an organization with 475 employees shows what the entire structure is based on: people who work in the range of rockets, and money from politically changeable sources. How many more operators will make the same decision if attacks on sapper teams continue is currently unknown.
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