The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will be providing Ukraine with widely-banned anti-personnel mines, breaking its own policy that’s meant to prohibit the transfer of the indiscriminate weapons.
The provision of anti-personnel mines is the latest escalation from the Biden administration and comes after President Biden authorized Ukraine to launch long-range strikes on Russian territory using US missiles, which Ukrainian forces have already begun firing into Russia.
Anti-personnel mines, which are designed to kill or maim people, are banned by 164 countries under the Ottawa Treaty, but the US and Russia are not signatories. Ukraine has signed the treaty but has violated it by using anti-personnel mines in the conflict.
US officials justified supplying Ukraine with anti-personnel mines by pointing to Russia’s use of the weapon and by saying that individual Russian ground troops are leading the offensives in eastern Ukraine, not armored vehicles.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also pointed to the fact that Ukraine already makes its own anti-personnel mines and claimed the US version is safer since they can self-detonate.
To provide the mines to Ukraine, President Biden has to violate his own policy that he implemented in 2022, which banned the transfer and use of US anti-personnel mines outside of the Korean Peninsula. The ban was initially an Obama-era policy, but it was reversed by the Trump administration in 2020.
Arms control groups, including the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), slammed the provision of the US mines to Ukraine. “The US must respect its own policy prohibiting landmine transfers,” the ICBL said. “As the world’s largest donor to mine clearance, spending millions annually to protect civilians, it’s inconceivable the US would facilitate laying new mines.”
The ICBL also called on Ukraine to stop violating the Ottawa Treaty. “Ukraine already faces years of demining due to Russian landmine use. Adding to this contamination would impact its own population for decades to come, ” the group said.
Since 2023, the US has been providing Ukraine with cluster bombs, another indiscriminate weapon that’s banned by over 100 countries. Cluster bombs spread small submunitions over a large area, many of which might not explode, making them a huge hazard for civilians who may come across them in the future.