State Emergency Service of Ukraine crews use a mechanized de-mining machine to clear land of mines in the country’s southern Kherson region in May 2023. SES removed and destroyed hundreds of mines and other explosive objects in the Kherson, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions using the de-mining machines donated by the Decatur, Ill.-based Howard G. Buffett Foundation. File Photo by State Emergency Service of Ukraine/UPI | License Photo
U.S. President Joe Biden has given authorization for Ukrainian forces to be supplied with antipersonnel mines, according to officials in Washington, in the second watershed shift in U.S. policy in three days.
The mines are for use on the eastern battlefront where Ukrainian Armed Forces, hamstrung by a lack of troops and munitions, are coming under relentless pressure from Russian forces which have been gaining ground in recent months, two unnamed U.S. officials told The Washington Post, CNN and the BBC. Advertisement
The officials said the mines would help bolster Ukraine’s defensive capability and that Kyiv had provided assurances that the mines would only be used within Ukraine and in unpopulated areas to reduce the risk of harming civilians.
Delivery of the mines which is expected to come “soon,” comes after Biden reportedly lifted a prohibition Sunday on Ukraine using U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System long-range missiles to strike targets on Russian soil.
Ukraine responded almost immediately, using six of the missiles in an attack Tuesday on Russia’s neighboring Bryansk region, according to the Russian Defense Ministry which claimed its air defenses shot down five of the ATACMSs and damaged the sixth. Advertisement
Tuesday also saw Russian President Vladimir Putin sign off on new nuclear engagement rules to the effect that an attack from a non-nuclear adversary backed by a nuclear ally would be now be considered a “joint attack” on Russia — though it was not clear if the two events were linked.
Under the revised nuclear doctrine unveiled in September, seen as a barely-disguised threat designed to give Washington and its nuclear-armed allies pause on granting Ukraine’s request to use ATACMSs, any use of Western-supplied conventional missiles, drones or aircraft against Russia or threatening its sovereignty, could meet the bar for a nuclear response.
The Biden administration has supplied Ukraine with anti-tank mines virtually from the outset but imposed a worldwide ban — the Korean peninsula excepted — on the antipersonnel mines, which are specifically designed to kill or maim enemy soldiers, in June 2022 due to the enduring risk they pose to civilians after the fighting is over.
Russia has been using the mines in Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022, but the policy reversal is another step backward by the United States from fully complying with the 1997 Ottawa Convention ban on deploying, storing, producing and transferring land mines. Advertisement
However, the mines Ukraine will receive are so-called “non-persistent,” types, CNN quoted the officials as saying, designed to defuse themselves within set timeframe as short as four hours and four weeks at the longest.
The system works by using a fuse powered by a battery with a fixed lifespan. When the battery dies, the mine is disabled.
That is in stark contrast to Russian tactics which rely on extensive conventional antipersonnel and antitank minefields to defend their dug-in frontline positions.
