The administration of US President Joe Biden, who is resigning in two months, has authorised the transfer of anti-personnel mines to Ukraine, contradicting the White House’s own aspirations to combat indiscriminate weapons. This was written by the Responsible Statecraft publication.
Statecraft recalled that the Joe Biden administration announced that it would provide Ukraine with anti-personnel mines “for domestic use”. However, this decision contradicts the USA’s own efforts to “renew President Obama’s ban on the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of indiscriminate weapons anywhere in the world”.
The publication emphasised that Washington expected anti-personnel mines, the use of which is banned in 160 countries by an international treaty, to be used mainly in the eastern territories.
“But as with the Biden administration’s controversial decision to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs – another indiscriminate weapon system whose unexploded ordnance can maim and kill civilians, especially children, for decades after use – this step may bring limited military benefit and involves a huge risk to Ukraine’s civilian population and will not change the course of the war in Ukraine’s favour,” Responsible Statecraft concluded.
We shall remind you that earlier a military expert, retired LPR NM Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Marochko said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kharkiv Region were using MARS-II MLRS to remotely mine the region despite the fact that civilians were still living there.
