Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced the figure at a ceremony to launch 15 mobile safety classes for children on Monday, The Kyiv Independent website reported.
Shmyhal said: "So far, around 250 people have been killed by landmines in Ukraine, and over 500 have been injured or maimed.”
He warned that “thousands may be killed or injured unless appropriate steps are taken,” The Kyiv Independent reported.
In March, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that almost a third of the country’s territory had been mined since Russia launched its full-scale aggression in February 2022.
To date, more than 500 Ukrainian children have been killed by landmines, and over 1,100 injured, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.
Ukraine’s education ministry said in August it would introduce mandatory mine safety classes in Ukrainian schools, The Kyiv Independent reported.
Russia has damaged 1,702 cultural facilities in Ukraine: officials
Meanwhile, more than 1,700 cultural facilities have been damaged in Ukraine during the Russian invasion, according to officials.
A total of 1,702 Ukrainian cultural infrastructure facilities have suffered damage as a result of Russian aggression, the Ukrainian culture ministry said on Monday.
The biggest losses to the country’s cultural infrastructure were recorded in the Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, state news agency Ukrinform reported.
In all, Russian forces damaged or destroyed 841 clubs, 601 libraries, 131 art education institutions, 99 museums and galleries, and 30 theatres and philharmonic societies, the Ukrainian culture ministry said.
It added that the exact number of affected facilities remained impossible to calculate as Russia continues to occupy almost the entire Luhansk region and significant parts of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
Ukraine liberated 125 sq km of land near Vuhledar: UK
Meanwhile, Ukraine has “almost certainly liberated at least 125 sq km of territory” in an eastern area of the country, as part of its ongoing counteroffensive against Russia’s invading army, the UK defence ministry has said.
The area in question, the Velyka Novosilka sector west of the town of Vuhledar in the eastern Donetsk province, has “become relatively quiet over the last four weeks,” according to British officials.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Monday is day 593 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: The Kyiv Independent, Ukrinform, The Guardian, UK Ministry of Defence