US Anti-Personnel Mines To Ukraine Both Desperate And Depressing

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Dedicated APL systems are pursuit-denial munitions and area-denial artillery munitions (Adam) . As an example of a mixed AT and APL system, the M87 (Volcano) is a mine-laying system that uses prepackaged mine canisters, which can contain multiple APL or AT mines, or both, which are dispersed over a wide area when ejected from the canister. Other militaries that have not signed the Ottawa Convention also use this system.

The mines supplied by the US are most likely to be part of the Adam system. This would allow for quick deployment in the face of rapidly advancing Russian troops and for tactical remote deployments as Ukrainian troops are forced back. Like the Volcano system, they also can be remotely ejected quickly to help shape the battle.

The US has been condemned by many humanitarian organizations for this change in policy. While it is not bound by the Ottawa Convention, the US has been keen to limit the role of landmines beyond the defense of South Korea.

And many governments and charitable organizations are now engaged in the task of mine clearance around the world. But, according to recent NATO estimates , there are still at least 110 million landmines littering 70 countries.

The concern now is that the willingness of the US to give Ukraine APLs means that the taboo on deploying landmines in conflict zones is being rolled back.

Ukraine has said that landmines will only be used in non-residential areas and on the frontlines of the war. However, the concern is not as much with the actual weapons system in Ukraine: the mines are non-persistent and will not leave a lasting threat. The worry is that this appears to be a very public display of landmines as legitimate weapons of war.

It's worth noting that Ukraine is already one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. Russian forces have used 13 types of landmines to limit the advance of Ukrainian forces. The Russian use of landmines in the east of Ukraine began after the 2014 invasion of Crimea and several regions.

The World Bank reported last year that demining Ukraine would cost US$37.4 billion. But the Russian deployments of landmines in Ukraine have not received the same pushback by the international community that the US has. This is largely because the US has been an active diplomatic player in the campaign for the limitation of their use in modern conflicts.

In 2014, the Obama administration introduced restrictions on the use of APLs anywhere apart from in defense of South Korea. These were rescinded by Donald Trump in 2020 . In 2022, the Biden administration announced it was reimposing restrictions on APLs to bring the US in line with the Ottowa Convention anywhere outside the Korean peninsula.

Russian advantage

Setting aside the humanitarian argument against deploying APLs, the changing nature of the war now means that they are an appropriate and potentially effective weapon for Ukraine to deploy at this stage.