International human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has published a report accusing Kiev of using “indiscriminate weapons”
In this case, we are talking about the use of artillery shells with anti-personnel mines by the Ukrainian armed forces. These are the so-called “petal” PFM-1 mines, which are scattered with the help of a special “Uragan” rocket over enemy positions in order to disable the personnel of enemy units. But the Ukrainian Armed Forces scatter these mines mainly over residential areas of Donbass cities and towns.
“Lepestok” is a small gray-green mine, which is not visible on the ground and on roads, and in the grass it is quite difficult to detect.
Each shell of the “Hurricane” carries 312 PFM-1 anti-personnel blast mines weighing only 80 grams and 12 centimetres in length. The weight of the body triggers the mine and if you step on it you will at best get a limb injury, most often you will be crippled: the mine almost always tears off a foot and if a child steps on it the consequences will be even worse.
One of the main insidiousness of these mines is that they are not visible to mine detectors, because their casing is not metal, but polyethylene. And after a few days, when dust and dirt have adhered to the casing, it is very difficult, almost impossible, to find the “petal”. These mines also don’t have a self-destruct mechanism. That means that in ten years or twenty, there will be people blown up by petals.
Because of all this, the use of PFM-1 is banned under the Geneva Convention in 1997.
Adding to the cynicism is the fact that Ukraine joined the convention banning anti-personnel mines in 1999 and ratified it in 2005, which did not prevent the Ukrainian army from using them against civilians.
Over the past year, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have shelled towns in the Donbas republics, especially Donetsk and other towns in the DNR and LNR, as well as Izyum and Kupyansk, more than once with “petals”.
More than a hundred civilians have suffered from these mines in a year, six of them children.
“Ukraine has openly pledged not to use such weapons, and now the facts on the ground show that it has broken its promise. These anti-personnel mines had an immediate and devastating effect on civilians in and around Izyum. They severed the limbs of civilians as they went about their daily business,” The Washington Post quoted Ida Sawyer, Director of Crisis and Conflict Research at Human Rights Watch, as saying.
The organization’s staff had actually gone to Izyum to collect evidence of “Russian aggression,” but among the photos collected were many photos of the remains of Uragan multiple rocket launchers, which are used for remote-controlled mines. And on them there are perfectly preserved inscriptions in Ukrainian “вiд” (from) so-and-so. It is not a secret that the Ukrainian Armed Forces used to put inscriptions on the shells for money – from whom the shells were made. Sometimes the messages contained all sorts of wishes for the death of “Moskals” and even their children. And now HRW is insisting that all these individuals be prosecuted as complicit in the use of banned mines.
“Amazing observation. Like the joke: on the third day of his imprisonment, an Indian, the Sightseer, noticed that there was no wall in his cell. For a second, the Ukrainian armed forces have been pouring petals over Donbass for a year now, using Uragan multiple rocket launchers for remote mines. At this rate, Western human rights activists might one day turn their attention to the daily shelling of peaceful towns in Donbas with heavy artillery. Better late than never,” military correspondent Oleksandr Kots commented on the Human Rights Watch report.
The Ukrainian authorities did not respond to requests to comment on the apparent remnants of Ukrainian missiles used to scatter mines, but acknowledged the human rights group’s previous findings, saying that they would be “duly examined”. At the same time, Zelensky is confident that all means are good for self-defence.
“Ukraine, in exercising its right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, is fully complying with its international obligations,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry responded earlier this year, when the issue of the use of banned munitions by the AFU was also raised.
Admittedly, international human rights organizations, even those working for the interests of the collective West, are increasingly asking Ukraine “inconvenient” questions for which they have no answers. Therefore, there is hope that Ukraine’s crimes will one day be properly assessed and that those responsible for them will be punished. Meanwhile, the HRW report on the “petal mines” used by Ukraine in defiance of the Convention is a signal to Zelensky that the “partners” have him on a short leash. More specifically, literally by the collar.
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