The United States will soon provide antipersonnel mines to Ukraine, a U.S. official confirmed late Tuesday, in a move that followed Ukraine’s first deployment of long-range U.S.-supplied ballistic missiles in an attack on Russia.
The United States will soon provide antipersonnel mines to Ukraine, a U.S. official confirmed late Tuesday, in a move that followed Ukraine’s first deployment of long-range U.S.-supplied ballistic missiles in an attack on Russia.
To deploy in your own country?
Why not? They are banned because they can last forever and blow up random people for decades after the war.
Read the article.
They are basically deactivating after hours, days or weeks.
So not like the old 1970 mines.
No one is disputing the danger mines pose.
From the article:
That does not completely remove the risk, as there is still a blob of explosive in the ground. But this is overall an improvement on the improvised mines they are currently building.
Reading this, it’s pretty clear that until landmines can be fully removed from warfare, (which isn’t happening in the foreseeable future), that the emphasis is on how they are used.
Namely:
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule81
Also of interest is that Russia (and the US) are not signed on to the anti personnel section , making things complicated. That’s no excuse to use them carte blanche but it complicates things.
But I’m just one dude, I’m not a pro on this. I’m happy to see them used defensively, with modern tracking and disarmament techniques, rather than old school or home built devices that have no such precautions.