Biden approves antipersonnel mines for Ukraine, undoing his own policy

President Joe Biden has authorized the provision of antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine, two US officials said, a step that will bolster Kyiv’s defenses against advancing Russian troops but has drawn criticism from arms control groups,reported from The Washington Post.

The move comes in the wake of the White House’s recent authorization allowing Ukraine to use a powerful long-range missile system to strike inside Russia — part of a sweep of urgent actions the lame-duck Biden administration is taking to help Kyiv’s faltering war effort.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow will retaliate for the latest missile strikes from the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS. Shipping antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine is also potentially controversial, though among a different group: More than 160 countries have signed an international treaty banning their use, noting that the indiscriminate weapons can cause enduring harm to civilians. But Kyiv has sought them since Russia invaded nearly three years ago, and the Kremlin’s forces have deployed antipersonnel land mines liberally on the front lines, impeding Ukraine’s progress as it seeks to reclaim its own territory.

The Biden administration is deeply concerned about Russia’s assaults against Ukraine’s front lines in recent weeks and sees a pressing need to blunt the advance, officials said. The Pentagon believes that the provision of the mines is among the most helpful steps the Biden administration can do to help slow Russia’s attack, officials said.

One official said the type of antipersonnel land mine is "nonpersistent,” meaning that the mines self-destruct or lose battery charge to render them inactive within days or weeks, reducing the danger to civilians.

Neither Russia nor the United States is one of the 164 parties to the Ottawa Convention, also known as the Mine Ban Treaty, that prohibits the deployment and transfer of antipersonnel land mines. Biden in 2022 revived an Obama-era policy that banned the transfer and use of US antipersonnel land mines outside the Korean Peninsula.

"It’s a shocking and devastating development,” said Mary Wareham, deputy director of the crisis, conflict and arms division at Human Rights Watch, the advocacy group, who said that even nonpersistent mines hold risks for civilians, require complicated cleanup efforts and are not always reliably deactivated.

The Biden administration has already committed to supporting mine-clearance efforts in Ukraine after the end of the conflict.

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