Excerpt
Biden will give Ukraine controversial land mines in policy shift
November 20, 2024
WASHINGTON − The Biden administration will for the first time give Ukraine antipersonnel land mines, controversial weapons condemned by arms control groups for their high rates of civilian death and injury.
Although the U.S. has provided anti-tank mines to Ukraine throughout the Russian invasion, it will soon begin providing antipersonnel land mines, or APLs, a U.S. official said. Antipersonnel mines are more easily triggered than anti-tank mines.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed the U.S. will give Ukraine the land mines on Wednesday.
The Ukrainians "have a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians," he told reporters. "They're fabricating their own anti-personnel landmines right now."
Antipersonnel land mines are banned by a treaty signed by more than 160 countries, but the U.S. and Russia aren't signatories. Arms control and human rights groups say they cause disproportionately high civilian casualties, and some can endanger civilians years after a conflict ends.
The land mines the Biden administration will give Ukraine are "non-persistent," meaning they will lose their explosiveness after a certain period of time.
Austin said the U.S. "can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate," making them safer than improvised devices Ukraine is currently using.
Arms control organizations say the dangers to civilians still apply.
The official said the devices require battery power to detonate – once the battery runs out after a period of up to two weeks, they will become "inert" – unlike land mines Russia has used in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine will only use the weapons defensively on its own territory, and the U.S. will seek commitment from Ukraine to limit civilian risk, according to the official.
The Biden administration last year faced backlash for giving Ukraine "cluster munitions," another controversial weapon banned by more than 100 nations and criticized by human rights groups.
Biden set a policy banning antipersonnel land mines outside the Korean peninsula in 2022 after President-elect Donald Trump reversed Obama-era restrictions on the weapons during his first term in 2020.
All the views expressed in, and at the source of, this article may not necessarily reflect those of T.E.A. Watchers.
Click article heading to go to article source.