What anti-personnel mines will do for Ukraine

The decision by the Biden administration to supply Ukraine with thousands of anti-personnel mines will, I imagine, be greeted with unalloyed joy within Kyiv’s corridors of military power.

The US has provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines throughout its war with Russia, but the addition of anti-personnel mines is aimed at blunting the advance of Russian ground troops in the east, and in the Russian region of Kursk where Ukrainian forces are fighting to cling onto the ground they captured earlier this year. 

Anti-personnel mines are weapons of the utmost cynicism — they work on the premise that wounded soldiers cause more problems for an enemy than dead ones

Anti-personnel mines are designed to maim and not kill. Their sole purpose is to slow down the advance of enemy troops. Each device contains just enough plastic explosive — a couple of ounces — to blow off someone’s foot or lower leg. This means wounded troops are either left screaming on the battlefield as their comrades continue to advance or they are carried back by up to eight other soldiers to an evacuation point where they will enter the medical chain.

While one soldier stepping on one mine may not cause commanders too much consternation, ten, 100 or 1,000 soldiers suffering similar wounds will grind any advance to a juddering halt, destroy morale and, crucially, completely overwhelm any adversary’s ability to deal with wounded troops.

Anti-personnel mines are weapons of the utmost cynicism — they work on the premise that wounded soldiers cause more problems for an enemy than dead ones. But they are also brutally effective.

The issue with anti-personnel mines is not the injuries they inflict on combatants — modern weapons are designed to butcher and inflict terrible wounds. It is the damage they can cause, often to civilians, once the war has ended.

Anti-personnel mines laid by the Argentine army when they invaded the Falklands in 1982 were only finally cleared in 2020. Mines laid in the Vietnam war and the subsequent conflicts in Cambodia and Africa are still maiming people today.

British soldiers fighting in Afghanistan suffered terrible wounds, including traumatic amputations, from anti-personnel mines laid by Soviet troops twenty-five-years earlier and were never properly cleared.

It is this legacy impact of anti-personnel mines which forced many countries — but not the US — to remove them from their armories largely in the belief that state on state European wars, where vast tracts of land might have to be denied to advancing troops, were over.

But, as one former soldier told me: “When you are fighting for your life you will use anything, and I mean anything, to kill your enemy. I’ve seen spades used to kill people and I know of a colleague who was forced to drown a member of the Taliban in a puddle after running out of ammunition during a firefight.”
Importantly, the US mines differ from those used by Russia because they are ‘non-persistent’, and become inert after a preset period, according to the US. The mines require a battery to detonate, and will not explode once the battery runs out. Still, the explosive materials remain, and the Red Cross has argued that even smart mines ‘indiscriminately endanger civilians while they are activated.”

Colonel Philip Ingram, a former British army intelligence officer who saw action in the Iraq War, believes these mines should be used. “The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (The Ottawa Convention) which was brought in on March 1, 2009 was designed to stop the manufacturing, stockpiling and use of anti-personnel mines because of their post-conflict risk in maiming civilians and children when the fighting stops, especially as they tend to be used indiscriminately,” he told me.

“However, the Russians are indiscriminately using anti-personnel mines in Ukraine of a type that remains active for years. These US mines are specifically designed to become inert after a set period so have a negligible post-conflict impact. Given the Russian tactics of waves of soldiers overwhelming Ukrainian defenses through sheer numbers, the use of these mines makes very real military sense. I think it is a good move and will help the Ukrainian defenses.”

This latest move by the Biden administration follows the decision to allow Ukraine to use US-made ATACMS missiles to strike into Russian territory on Tuesday, the war’s 1,000th day. Moscow said the use of ATACMS, the longest-range missiles Washington has yet supplied to Ukraine, was a clear signal the West wanted to escalate the conflict.

The question now is whether Ukraine can use these mines, along with ATACMS missiles, to hold onto its territory before the next president begins negotiations with Russia. For Ukraine, the next two months are going to be vital.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.