Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced on Wednesday that the Biden administration has approved the first deployment of anti-personnel mines to Ukraine.
The decision comes just days after the US granted Ukraine permission to launch long-range US missiles at targets in Russia, a shift that came only after months of lobbying by Kyiv.
According to US sources, Kyiv plans to use anti-personnel mines in the country’s east, where Russian troops have made gradual but steady progress against Ukrainian defensive lines. The grinding conflict has cost Moscow dearly, with Ukraine reporting Russia’s largest number of casualties this week. However, Russia’s relentless push, along with a paucity of Ukrainian soldiers and weapons, has allowed the Russian military to progressively gain additional territory.
Austin told reporters on Wednesday that the decision was prompted by Russia’s shifting tactics on the front lines.
“Because the Russians have been so unsuccessful in the way that they have been fighting, they’ve kind of changed their tactics a bit,” Austin told reporters while visiting Laos.
“They no longer lead with their mechanized forces. They lead with dismounted forces that can close and do things to clear the way for mechanized forces,” he stated.
Austin believes Ukraine’s military requires “things that can help slow down that effort.”
The US expects Ukraine to utilize these anti-personnel mines to strengthen defensive lines within its sovereign borders, rather than as an offensive weapon against Russia. The US has also requested guarantees that Ukraine will take steps to reduce the risk to people from mines.
The Washington Post initially reported on the administration’s decision.
Since the start of the war, the United States has provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines to counter Russia’s numerical dominance in armored vehicles. However, the Biden administration had previously refused to equip Ukraine with anti-personnel mines due to worries about the long-term damage they posed. Human rights organizations have long opposed the deployment of anti-personnel mines because they can kill indiscriminately and stay armed for years after the battle in which they were originally deployed has finished.
In June 2022, four months after the commencement of the Ukrainian war, the Biden administration promised to minimize the use of anti-personnel mines. The White House announced the decision, which was a reversal from the previous Trump administration, citing a “need to curtail the use of (anti-personnel mines) worldwide.” The United States said that it would no longer create or sell anti-personnel mines and would try to destroy all of its existing stockpiles. (South Korea was the only exception to this policy.)
The introduction of anti-personnel mines for Ukraine, particularly with only a few weeks left in the Biden administration, represents a rapid shift in what had previously been a long-standing policy.
According to officials, the mines provided by the US to Ukraine will be “non-persistent,” which means they will include an internal mechanism to decrease the trigger’s lifespan. The mines are supposed to become inactive after a specified length of time, which might range from four hours to two weeks, according to officials. The mines use an electrical fuse that requires a battery, and the mine becomes inactive when the battery runs out.
Russia has been deploying anti-personnel and anti-tank mines from the beginning of the war. As Russian soldiers marched into Ukraine and erected their own defensive lines, they planted minefields to impede any Ukrainian counterattack. Last summer, as Ukrainian forces launched an ultimately fruitless counteroffensive, one Ukrainian official described the number of Russian mines as “insane.”
