Ukrainian Deminers Learn Japan’s ALIS Mine Detector — in Cambodia

Cambodia, January 2023. Eight demining specialists from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SESU; rendered by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA, as the “State Emergency Service”) were invited to a training facility of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC). In their hands was ALIS, a mine detector developed in Japan. Sato Motoyuki, then a professor at Tohoku University and the device’s developer, personally taught them how to operate it, with CMAC staff experienced in using ALIS serving as instructors.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion, wide areas of Ukraine became unusable because of landmines and unexploded ordnance. This article traces the equipment and training Japan has sent in this field, using published materials from JICA, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), and the Ukrainian government.

The Extent of Contamination Changes With the Point in Time and Who Is Announcing It

First, the underlying figure: how much land is contaminated. The number changes with each announcement, and different bodies count it differently. “Contamination,” as used here, refers to land where there may be explosives present and which cannot be used safely (per JICA Yokohama’s explanation). It is not a figure counting only the land where explosives have actually been found.

The same Demine Ukraine platform gives the area of land returned to users as 41,924 km². Of this, only 171 km² resulted from actual clearance work; the remaining 41,753 km² was returned after “non-technical survey” — based on local interviews, records checks, and similar methods. The area where mines have actually been removed and the area judged usable after a survey differ by orders of magnitude. When looking at these figures, it is necessary to check when, by whom, and what kind of land was counted. How to read the gap between announcements and actual results is also covered in When ‘Recovery Has Progressed’ Is Announced, What Has Actually Been Finished?

The First Item Sent Was a Crane-Equipped Truck

On January 10, 2023, JICA signed a Record of Discussions with the State Emergency Service for the technical cooperation project “Capacity Enhancement for Humanitarian Mine and Unexploded Ordnance Action.” The first item confirmed for provision was a truck combining an Isuzu Motors chassis with a Tadano crane. JICA coordinated with three companies, including Sojitz, and confirmed this on January 23. Some of the explosive ordnance handled weighs as much as about 500 kilograms, and JICA explains that heavy equipment such as a crane is useful for transporting it.

On April 25, 2023, a handover ceremony for the truck and ALIS was held in Kyiv. According to JICA, the equipment was expected to be used in areas such as Donetsk Oblast, Luhansk Oblast, Kherson Oblast, and Kyiv Oblast, where clearance of mines and unexploded ordnance left behind by Russian forces was underway. A deputy minister from Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy who attended the ceremony said that having the truck assembled at a Ukrainian factory had helped protect jobs.

ALIS, and a Demining Machine Weighing Nearly 30 Tonnes

ALIS is a detector that combines a metal detector with ground-penetrating radar. With a metal detector alone, there is no way to tell whether something that triggers a response is a mine or scrap metal, so everything has to be dug up to check. ALIS displays the shape of the object that triggered a response on a screen, making it easier to distinguish before digging. According to a 2023 JICA article, it weighs about 3 kilograms, roughly the same as a conventional metal detector.

The other pillar is heavy-equipment demining machines. On January 24, 2023, the State Emergency Service delegation inspected an actual unit made by Nikken, a leading Japanese demining-machine manufacturer, in Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture. JICA Yokohama describes the unit as “heavy equipment weighing nearly 30 tonnes.” According to a 2024 JICA report, the demining machines provided also included a crane-equipped “swing type,” which, by swapping its front attachment, can also be used to clear rubble that may be mixed with explosive ordnance.

The number of units provided has grown as follows, according to JICA’s materials.

• JICA newsletter, May 2025: 50 ALIS units, 22 Japanese-made demining machines, crane-equipped trucks, and others. The demining machines were used in Kharkiv Oblast, Mykolaiv Oblast, and elsewhere
• JICA article, October 2025: 54 ALIS units, 22 demining machines

ALIS has been improved in response to requests from the State Emergency Service, and on July 15, 2025, training on how to use the updated software was held near Kyiv.

Why Cambodia

Cambodia was chosen as the training site because it is home to a mine-action organization Japan has long supported. According to JICA, cooperation began in 1998. Through continued provision of equipment, such as brush-cutting machines, and organizational capacity-building, the area of land CMAC has cleared or surveyed and released annually grew from about 10 km² in 1995–1999 to about 282 km² in 2023.

Since 2010, CMAC has partnered with JICA to take on the role of teaching officials from other countries struggling with landmines. Government officials from Colombia, Laos, Angola, Iraq, and other countries have received training; JICA puts the number at more than 500 in an October 2024 article and more than 600 in an October 2025 article. Ukraine joined this stream of training in 2023.

From July to August 2024, training on operating and maintaining demining machines was held, first in Japan with cooperation from the manufacturer for about two weeks, then at a training ground in Cambodia for about two more weeks. Fourteen people, including women, took part. According to a note in a JICA report, from the start of the full-scale invasion through July 2024, 113 State Emergency Service personnel had been injured, and 21 of them had died.

October 2025: A Conference in Tokyo

According to MOFA, the “Ukraine Mine Action Conference 2025 (UMAC2025)” was held in Tokyo on October 22 and 23, 2025. It was the third such conference, following one in Croatia in 2023 and one in Switzerland in 2024, and the first held outside Europe. About 600 people took part, including representatives of 75 countries and international organizations, discussing three themes — people, technology, and the “nexus” (the transition from mine action to recovery and reconstruction) — under the overall theme of “accelerating toward recovery.” An outcome document was released on the first day, and the next conference will be hosted by the EU.

According to MOFA’s announcement, Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu said in his opening remarks that Japan would advance support through its “Ukraine Mine Action Support Initiative,” which brings together Japan’s support measures, including human resource development and capacity building, revitalizing the socioeconomy, and contributions to the medical and welfare fields.

Mutual learning has continued to spread since the conference. According to JICA, at an international mine action meeting held in Geneva in April 2026, the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace under Colombia’s Office of the President, Ukraine’s Ministry of Economic Development and Environment, and JICA held a joint workshop to exchange experience on quality management and information management in mine action.

Demine Ukraine lists Japan’s name, following the United States and the EU, under “partners with large support amounts.” Japan’s cooperation consists of two things: sending equipment, and training the people who use it. In both cases, it takes time before results can be confirmed on the ground where the equipment is actually used.