Russian mines in Ukraine ‘greatest challenge’ to landmark ban treaty

GENEVA: Russia´s use of newly-produced landmines in Ukraine poses the greatest challenge to the landmark Mine Ban Treaty struck 25 years ago, a monitor said on Thursday.

Moscow has developed new anti-personnel mines and used ones made as recently as 2021 in Ukraine, the Landmine Monitor said. The monitor´s annual report identified 277 civilian casualties of mines and explosives in Ukraine in the first nine months of 2022 -- a near fivefold rise on the 58 in 2021. “At least seven types of anti-personnel mines have been used by Russian forces in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on February 24,” it said.

The monitor said it had confirmed evidence that Russian troops had planted “victim-activated booby-traps and improvised explosive devices in Ukraine... prior to retreating and abandoning their positions”. “Scatterable mines” appear to have been used in several regions, it said.

The report said the use of landmines by Russia -- and by Myanmar -- marred the 25th anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty, the pioneering accord struck in 1997 in Ottawa. A total of 164 countries are bound by the ban treaty and have jointly destroyed more than 55 million stockpiled anti-personnel mines.

Russia is not a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, while Ukraine is. “This is the first time that a country that has signed up to the Mine Ban Treaty has faced the use of mines on its territory by another country. That´s a big setback for the landmine treaty,” said one of the report´s editors Mary Wareham, the arms advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

“Anti-personnel landmines are unacceptable weapons that should not be used under any circumstances,” she told a press conference. Ukraine has been asked to respond to allegations that it has used some of its 3.3 million stockpile of landmines -- which should have been destroyed -- since the Russian invasion.