Nov 19 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden has approved provision of anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, a U.S. official told Reuters, a step that could help slow Russian advances in its east, especially when used along with other munitions from the United States.
The United States expects Ukraine to use the mines in its own territory, though it has committed not to use them in areas populated with its own civilians, the official said. The Washington Post first reported the development.
The office of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian defence ministry, the Russian defence ministry and the Kremlin did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests to comment.
The United States has provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines throughout its war with Russia, but the addition of anti-personnel mines aims at blunting the advance of Russian ground troops, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Oh, how sweet, Ukraine is finally allowed to use the same tools Russia is.
Fuck’s sake. All this pussyfooting from Cold War dinosaurs…
Cheering for land mines. A new low even for you.
This is what war does to people. We’re cheering for landmines and nukes, and anyone who points out how utterly insane that is, is branded as supporting the enemy.
The amount of people, particularly Americans I must say, who are hell bent on escalation, calling for nukes from the safety of 5000 miles away is disappointing.
“Escalation” is when you start using a weapon that your enemy has been using since the start of the war, huh?
Yes.
“Both sides use warcrime weapons” is an escalation from “only one side uses warcrime weapons”.
You know, some people might regard “one side using ‘warcrime weapons’” first as the escalation, not the other side deciding to follow suit.
So do i. Russia escalated by invading. Russia escalated by killing civilians, targeting civilian infrastructure, kidnaping children, attacking nuclear power plants, attacking dams, attacking hospitals, (and many more times). And by using mines.
That doesn’t change the fact that an escalation of the weapons used by ukraine is an escalation. That’s what that word means! Russia escalated first, and many times after. They are the bad guys.
Ukraine using mines is an escalation. Arguing against that point simply means you refuse to understand the word “escalation”.
Ah yes, remember how this war famously doesn’t have anti-personnel landmines being widely used?
Oh? What’s that? Russia is already widely using them in Ukrainian territory?
I am all in favour for handing Ukraine the tools they need to win this war. But at the same time “the others are doing it” is no justification for a free pass on every weapon or tactic.
The Russians butchered civilians, destroyed critical civilian infrastructure and yet I’d rather prefer the Ukrainians to not do the same.
Also anti personal mines and cluster munitions from i.e. the Vietnam war are still causing crippling and death today. Using weapons that are prone to cause damage to future generations for short term gains is in my opinion short sighted. We should provide Ukraine with more “sensible” weapons in quantities that makes using cluster munitions and mines obsolete.
No, but neither is fighting with both hands behind their backs. Anti-personnel mines remain effective, especially considering Russia’s preferred tactics. Ukraine already is being attacked with chemical weapons regularly, having PoWs tortured and executed, and their civilians murdered and their children quite literally kidnapped by the Russian state, and we’re gonna draw the line at ‘using landmines in non-civilian areas to stop Russian advances’?
Fuck that noise.
Those were also used in very different contexts. Modern cluster munitions do not have the same long-term potential for damage that Vietnam-era munitions did, and the same with landmines - especially since landmine recording protocols were updated in part because of the haphazard way they were used in Vietnam. And, for that matter, we dropped more ordnance on Vietnam than was dropped in the entirety of WW2 by the Axis AND Allies combined, all over the country. The same is not going to happen in Ukraine, neither in scale nor in type. They want to prevent the Russians from advancing along the frontlines, and are not going to use them in civilian areas.
How many thousands of Ukrainians dead, maimed, tortured, or ethnically cleansed today would you consider it an insufficient short-term gain to avert?
And what weapons are those? What weapons would make cluster munitions and mines obsolete in the context of the current war?
If the Russians don’t want to step on mines they can just fuck off back into their borders.
The children also don’t want to step on mines.