BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — Britain is joining a European initiative to develop long-range missiles, UK defense secretary John Healey announced on Thursday, as the continent seeks to strengthen its air defenses.

“We are making a UK commitment to the long-range missile program, a formal commitment alongside Germany, France, Poland and a couple of others,” Healey said on the sidelines of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels.

“We will lead work to improve the integration and therefore the effectiveness of our European air defense systems,” he told reporters.

France, Germany, Italy and Poland announced in July a push to work together to develop the missiles that have a range of more than 500 kilometers.

Healey also said London was ready to deploy swiftly, if needed, British troops to Estonia to bolster NATO’s eastern flank against the threat from Russia.

“We are boosting our support for Estonia, with thousands of troops ready to deploy rapidly to the Russian border,” he said, according to his ministry.

Demining

Meanwhile, dozens of countries committed Thursday to help clear war-torn Ukraine of massive amounts of mines and explosives, which contaminate nearly a quarter of its territory.

During a two-day conference in Switzerland, more than 40 countries backed the Lausanne Call for Action, committing to concrete actions towards humanitarian demining in Ukraine, the organizers said.

“Ukraine has become the most mined country in the world,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told the conference.

He said that since Russia’s February 2022 invasion “about a quarter” of Ukraine had become covered with mines and unexploded bombs.

“The scale of this challenge is truly massive,” he said.

“We are talking about an area of approximately 140,000 square kilometers — nearly three times of size of Switzerland.”

He pointed to expert estimates that “up to 9,000 civilians could lose their lives” if action is not taken to clear away the mines.

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis stressed the urgency. “Without humanitarian demining, you do not have agricultural production, you cannot feed people, you cannot let children play, you cannot build industry,” he told a press conference.

Representatives promised on the first day of the Lausanne conference to help provide “swift and safe rehabilitation of agricultural areas,” according to a Swiss statement.