VIENTIANE, Laos—The United States will begin to send anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, a Biden administration policy shift that reflects changing Russian tactics and Ukrainian needs, a U.S. official said here.
The mines will be “non-persistent”—that is, they become inert after a set amount of time—after ”anywhere from 4 hours to 2 weeks,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The United States has sought commitments from the Ukrainians on their use, to further limit the risk to civilians. We expect Ukraine would use these mines on its own territory. The Ukrainians are committed to not employing them in areas populated with their own civilians,” the official said.
Asked about the not-yet-officially-announced policy shift, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the mines would help Ukraine repel Russian advances that have in recent months been led by dismounted troops instead of armored vehicles.
“What we’ve seen most recently is because the Russians have been so unsuccessful in the way that they have been fighting, they’ve kind of changed their tactics a bit, and they don’t lead with their mechanized forces anymore. They lead with the dismounted forces who are able to close and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanized forces,” Austin told reporters here.
The Ukrainians have been making their own land mines, and U.S.-supplied nonpersistent ones would be safer, he said, adding that the United States has long provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines.
The unnamed U.S. official noted that Russia has sown thousands of anti-personnel mines in Ukraine; few if any are non-persistent.
“On the note of Russia’s mines being littered throughout eastern Ukraine, we are already providing post-conflict remediation for mines and unexploded ordinance will already be required for eastern Ukraine. We will continue to support Ukraine’s efforts on this,” the official said.
In 2022, the Biden administration decided to “align its policy concerning use” of antipersonnel landmines “outside of the Korean Peninsula” with key provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction—commonly known as the Ottawa Convention. The convention requires states to stop making, using, and transferring anti-personnel land mines, and to destroy any stockpiled mines except for the “minimum number absolutely necessary” for training purposes, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.
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