US President Joe Biden has reportedly approved the provision of anti-personnel landmines (APL) to Ukraine to help deter Russia’s ongoing invasion, a reversal of his earlier stance against their provision.
The Washington Post, citing two unnamed US officials, said Tuesday that the decision was prompted by Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine that saw Moscow grabbing 1,200 sq. km (463 sq. miles) of Ukrainian territory since August, its largest gain since October 2022.
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The two officials said the Biden administration believes landmines are the most helpful tool for Kyiv to weather Moscow’s advances.
“Russia is attacking Ukrainian lines in the east with waves of troops, regardless of the casualties that they’re suffering,” said one official.
“So, the Ukrainians are obviously taking losses, and more towns and cities are at risk of falling. These mines were made specifically to combat exactly this,” he added.
Though Russia has been deploying APL against Ukrainian troops and civilians throughout the war, more than 160 countries, including Ukraine, have signed and ratified the Ottawa Convention that calls on signatories to prohibit the use of antipersonnel mines due to the risks they pose to civilians, especially after the conflicts ended.
Neither the US nor Russia is a signatory to the Ottawa Treaty.
The US adopted a new policy on APL in June 2022 which, according to National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson Adrienne Watson, would “align US policy concerning the use” of APL “outside of the Korean Peninsula” with the Ottawa Convention, although no timeline was given to when it would be achieved or what would happen to its stockpiles.
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An official told The Washington Post the mines to be provided to Ukraine would be “nonpersistent,” meaning they self-deactivate or self-destruct after a certain time to minimize the risks posed to civilians by those that remain “in the ground” after combat.
The announcement also did not indicate the types of mine that would be provided. Currently the US has only declared that it holds two self-sanitizing APLs that do not require additional special equipment to deploy the mines:
The area denial artillery munition (ADAM) is remotely delivered in a 155mm artillery projectile for which two types of APL are available – the M67 long-duration APL and the M72 short-duration APL. They are designed to self-destruct between four or 48 hours and, as they are electrically initiated, the internal battery will fully discharge after 14 days, rendering the mine inactive.
The other is the M86 Pursuit Deterrent Munition (PDM) which is actually a modified version of the ADAM delivered M67 / M72 APLs and operates with the same self-destruction modality and is deployed manually.
In January 2023, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukraine was the “largest minefield in the world,” with 250,000 sq. km (96,525 sq. miles) of its territory contaminated by landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) following Russia’s invasion.
Human Rights Watch said both Ukraine and Russia have used antipersonnel mines in the war, very few of which are non-persistent.
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