U.S. approves Kyiv’s land mines against Russia

The Biden administration will let Kyiv use U.S.-supplied anti-personnel land mines 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 tactics of more Russian ground troops rather than those in armored vehicles.

He said Ukraine needs munitions to slow the Russian advances.

“The land mines that we would look to provide (Ukraine) would be land mines that are not persistent. We can control when they would self-activate and self-detonate,” Mr. Austin said. “That makes it, you know, far safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.”

The policy change comes in the final two months of the Biden administration and days after the White House authorized Ukraine to use its U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System to strike targets in Russia.

More than 150 countries ban anti-personnel land mines on the battlefield, but notably not the U.S. or Russia. The International Committee of the Red Cross said the bombs leave a “long-lasting legacy of death, injury and suffering.”

“Stepping on a mine will often injure or kill one or more people — frequently children — with lifelong consequences for the victims and their families,” the ICRC said in a statement. “Mine contamination makes it impossible to use vast areas of land, compromising food production and destroying livelihoods. The impact of anti-personnel mines on communities often lasts for decades.”