The Biden administration said Wednesday it will reverse its earlier policy and let Kyiv use U.S.-supplied anti-personnel landmines to help fend off Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Laos, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the authorization to use the land mines reflects the changing face of the nearly three-year-old war, and a greater reliance on ground troop advances by Russian forces in recent months.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the move, calling it “essential” to his country’s ability to defend itself. The announcement came on the same day that the U.S. and several of its Western allies briefly closed their embassies in Kyiv amid reports of a possible massive Russian missile strike targeting the Ukrainian capital. Ukrainian intelligence officials said the reports were part of a larger disinformation campaign the Kremlin has been waging since the war began.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Laos, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the authorization to use the land mines reflects the changing face of the nearly three-year-old war, and a greater reliance on ground troop advances by Russian forces in recent months.
The move came as the White House continued to funnel weapons to Ukraine during the remaining two months of the Biden administration. On Wednesday, U.S. officials announced a new $275 million security assistance package that includes artillery and rocket ammunition, mortar rounds, anti-tank weapons, and attack drones taken from U.S. military stockpiles.
The shift on landmines was immediately slammed by human rights groups, who have long criticized the deadly legacy left by the weapons. But Mr. Austin said recent Russian advances had effectively forced the U.S. and its allies to respond.
“They lead with dismounted forces who are able to close in and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanized forces,” Mr. Austin said. “That’s what the Ukrainians are seeing right now. They have a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians.”
The U.S. has been providing Ukraine with anti-tank mines since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of its smaller neighbor in February 2022. The decision to include controversial anti-personnel landmines to the list reverses a pledge Mr. Biden made in 2022 to bar the use of anti-personnel landmines outside the Korean peninsula.
The U.S. is one of a handful of major nations, including China, Russia, South Korea, India, and Pakistan, that haven’t signed on to the 1997 Ottawa Convention which prohibits the use, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines.
Mr. Austin noted that Ukraine’s military is now making its own anti-personnel landmines. The ones from the U.S. inventory are considered “non-persistent,” meaning the operator would control when they would activate and self-detonate, he said.
“That makes them far safer than the things that they are creating on their own,” Mr. Austin said. “We’ve talked to them about how they would potentially employ these weapons and make sure they’re doing things responsibly, [such as] recording where they’re putting the mines.”
Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said Russian mines played a critical role in defeating Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year.
“Kyiv would now like to give invading Russian forces a taste of their own medicine,” Mr. Bowman said. “The biggest threat to Ukrainian civilians is Russian strikes and advancing Russian forces, not anti-personnel mines. If we want to help save Ukrainian lives, we should give Kyiv the means to defend itself and defeat Russian forces.”
International advocacy groups condemned the White House decision. Human Rights Watch said the Biden administration’s new policy risks civilian lives in Ukraine and sets back efforts to eradicate what they called “indiscriminate weapons.”
“The U.S. should reverse this reprehensible decision, which only increases the risk of civilian suffering in the short and long term,” said Mary Wareham, the deputy crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Russian forces have repeatedly used anti-personnel mines and committed atrocities against civilians across Ukraine in violation of the laws of war. But, this doesn’t justify transferring and using prohibited weapons.”
“Abiding by international protections for civilians means working to ensure that anti-personnel mines are never used again,” Ms. Wareham said.
Ryan Brobst, a senior research analyst at the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the anti-personnel mines provided by the U.S. are far less likely to kill or injure civilians.
“After a set period of time, the mines will become inert — unable to detonate — which minimizes the risk of unintended casualties,” Mr. Brobst said. “The risk associated with these modern, non-persistent mines should not be conflated with the risk of previous generations of mines, which could pose a danger decades after being deployed.”
Because the U.S. mines will deactivate or self-detonate after a set period, Ukrainian forces will be able to quickly advance through areas they previously mined to retake territory, Mr. Brobst said.