Timothy Snyder, the celebrity US historian, and actor Mark Hamill, the original Luke Skywalker, joined a campaign to raise $441,000 to buy 30 demining robots to clear land in Ukraine for civilian use and the reconstruction of the country.
"This is a new campaign, starting right now, to help save Ukrainian lives during this terrible war by funding robots that can clear mines," Snyder said in a blog post on the occasion of his 55th birthday.
The initiative, called "Safe Terrain," is being organized by United24, a Ukrainian government-run platform that says it has so far raised more than $675 million to help Ukraine amid the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian government has said as much as 156,000 square kilometers of land could be affected by land mines, posing a risk to more than 6 million Ukrainians.
However, the government said last month that clearance of land mines is picking up pace through a combination of foreign donations of demining vehicles, training of personnel and local manufacturing of related equipment.
The World Bank estimated last year that de-mining Ukraine will cost $37.6 billion, including $10 billion in various surveys and more than $27 billion in actual mine clearance, and take 10 years.
