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.
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?