Ukraine says cannot meet landmine destruction pledge due to Russia invasion

Activists and landmine survivors hold placards decrying the US decision to supply anti-personnel landmines to Ukrainian forces – Copyright AFP TANG CHHIN Sothy

Ukraine will not fulfil a commitment to destroy a stockpile of around 6 million landmines left over from the Soviet Union because of Russia’s invasion, a defence official said on Tuesday. 

The commitment made in connection with the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention’s Oslo Action Plan is “currently not possible” due to Russia’s invasion, Yevhenii Kivshyk of Ukraine’s defence ministry told a landmine conference in Cambodia.

Arsenals and other sites where anti-personnel mines are stored “have been under constant air and missile strikes by the armed forces of the Russian Federation”, he said. 

“In addition, some of them are in the territories that are currently under occupation by the Russian armed forces,” Kivshyk said.

Therefore there was “no possibility whatsoever to conduct audit and verification of the anti-personnel mine stocks”.

Ukraine is a signatory of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and has committed to destroying its stockpile of landmines.

It has previously missed deadlines to destroy its stockpile.

Last week Washington announced that it would send anti-personnel landmines to Kyiv to help its forces battle Russian troops, a decision immediately criticised by human rights campaigners.

The United States and Russia are not signatories to the anti-landmine convention.

Kivshyk made no mention of the US offer to Ukraine during his speech to the conference in Cambodia’s Siem Reap.

– ‘Look what mines do’ –

Landmine victims from across the world gathered at the meeting to protest the US decision.

More than 100 demonstrators lined the walkway taken by delegates to the conference venue where countries are reviewing progress on the anti-personnel mine ban treaty. 

“Look what antipersonnel landmines will do to your people,” read one placard held by two landmine victims.

Alex Munyambabazi, who lost a leg to a landmine in northern Uganda in 2005, said he “condemned” the decision by the United States to supply anti-personnel mines to Kyiv.

“We are tired. We don’t want to see any more victims like me, we don’t want to see any more suffering,” he told AFP. 

“Every landmine planted is a child, a civilian, a woman, who is just waiting for their legs to be blown off, for his life to be taken.

“I am here to say we don’t want any more victims. No excuses, no exceptions.”

Ukraine using the US mines would be in “blatant disregard for their obligations under the mine ban treaty”, said Tamar Gabelnick, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

“These weapons have no place in today’s warfare,” she told AFP. 

Ukrainians “have suffered long enough from the horrors of these weapons”.