Europeans are still busy cleaning up the mess the last big war, World War II — and to a smaller part World War I, as tensions between Russia and NATO ramp up.

The German government granted 100 million euros ($117.4 million) to study how best to recover the ammunition, and for engineers to come up with long-term plans on how to rid the oceans of it.

The current project will determine how in the long-run such offshore facilities should be designed, said Volker Hesse, a maritime engineer who co-coordinates the current program.

Hesse stressed the findings are not just important for Germany but also of great interest to other countries — because old ammunition sunk in the sea is a growing problem in countless locations around the world.

“This is definitely a global problem — one only has to think of the crises in Vietnam or Cambodia, but also here locally in the neighboring countries, the Baltic Sea, Denmark, Poland," Hesse said.

“We can sense there's interest from these countries, because we are the first to address this issue.”

AP video by Fanny Brodersen

Production by Kerstin Sopke