Latest news with #landmines
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lithuania notifies UN of withdrawal from landmine ban treaty
VILNIUS (Reuters) -Lithuania has notified the United Nations it is leaving the treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, its foreign minister posted on X on Friday. The country will no longer be bound by the treaty six months after the notification. Parliaments of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Poland - all NATO and EU members bordering Russia - have approved withdrawal of their countries from the treaty, citing the increased military danger from their neighbour.
Reuters
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Lithuania notifies UN of withdrawal from landmine ban treaty
VILNIUS, June 27 (Reuters) - Lithuania has notified the United Nations it is leaving the treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, its foreign minister posted on X on Friday. The country will no longer be bound by the treaty six months after the notification. Parliaments of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Poland - all NATO and EU members bordering Russia - have approved withdrawal of their countries from the treaty, citing the increased military danger from their neighbour.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
UK commitment to landmine ban ‘unwavering' says minister as allies exit
Britain has pledged its 'unwavering' commitment to a ban on anti-personnel landmines despite a number of Nato allies moving to pull out of an agreement prohibiting their use over the threat posed by Russia. Defence minister Lord Coaker restated the UK's support for the Ottawa Convention as the Government was pressed over whether it was considering following Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia in withdrawing from the treaty. The move by the nations bordering Russia comes amid growing fears about their belligerent neighbour following the invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has used landmines in its deadly onslaught. Lord Coaker said while the UK acknowledged the security concerns in the region and the right of countries to make this decision, it discouraged states from using anti-personnel landmines. He highlighted the important role played by the convention in protecting civilians from the harm caused by the indiscriminate weapons. His response comes amid concerns that the UK's international obligations are a barrier to bolstering the nation's defence. During a debate in the Lords earlier this year, former military chief Lord Stirrup warned over 'absolute prohibitions… especially when they are applied only to the defender'. Meanwhile, the newly published national security strategy warns Britain must actively prepare for a 'wartime scenario' on domestic soil 'for the first time in many years'. The document was released as the Prime Minister attended a Nato leaders' summit in the Netherlands, where allies were being asked to hike defence funding to 5% of national economic output. Responding to a parliamentary written question on the Ottawa Convention, Lord Coaker said: 'His Majesty's Government (HMG) has noted that Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have stated their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention. 'The UK acknowledges and shares concerns about the security environment in the region as a result of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. 'We also acknowledge that it is the sovereign right of those countries to make this decision. 'The UK will work to mitigate impacts on vital arms control and disarmament norms, while continuing to engage bilaterally on the actions states plan to take.' He added: 'The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (also known as the Ottawa Convention) continues to play an important role in protecting civilians from harm caused by anti-personnel landmines. 'As a state party to the Ottawa Convention, the UK's commitment to it remains unwavering. 'We continue to encourage countries to join the Ottawa Convention, subscribe to its provisions and discourage states from using anti-personnel landmines.'
Arab News
4 days ago
- Business
- Arab News
Ukraine has cleared 20 percent of mined land, PM says
KYIV: Ukraine has intensified efforts to clear land mines and has cut the affected area to around 137,000 square km (53,000 square miles), a 20 percent reduction from the end of 2022, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on of the remaining mined areas are farmland, Shmyhal is a global major grain grower but it reduced harvests sharply after Russia's 2022 invasion left large areas occupied and said about 9,000 people from 112 specialized companies are now involved in mine analysts say Ukraine needs at least 10 years to demine all territories.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Europe is building a new ‘Iron Curtain'– with millions of landmines
From Lapland in the high north of Finland to Lublin province in eastern Poland, a new and explosive iron curtain is about to descend across Europe. Every Nato country along that line has decided that deterring Russian invasion requires a defensive measure that would once have been inconceivable. If necessary, they will sow the tranquil forests of pine and birch along their borders with millions of landmines, a weapon previously considered so abhorrent that most of the world tried to ban it forever. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have announced they will leave the Ottawa Convention of 1997, which prohibits anti-personnel landmines. Later in June, all five states are expected to give the United Nations formal notice of their withdrawal, allowing them to manufacture, stockpile and deploy such munitions from the end of the year. Together, they guard 2,150 miles of Nato's frontier with Russia and its client state of Belarus. Military planners are already working out which expanses of European forest and lake land would be planted with these deadly devices, laden with high explosives and shrapnel, if Vladimir Putin were to mass his forces against the alliance. The impending return of minefields in vast areas of Europe signals the quiet demise of the international campaign to ban these weapons, famously adopted by the late Princess Diana during her visit to Angola in January 1997. 'I come with my heart and I want to bring awareness to people in distress,' she said, after treading a narrow path between live mines. Tony Blair took up the cause with such fervour that in his fourth week as prime minister later the same year, he prohibited the production and export of landmines. Britain campaigned to make this ban global through the Ottawa Convention, which was eventually signed by 164 countries. Blair even ensured that Britain ratified the Convention in time for the first anniversary of Princess Diana's death. One ardent supporter was Lord Robertson, the co-author of Britain's latest defence review. As defence secretary in 1998, he condemned landmines as neither 'morally correct or militarily useful' adding: 'We must use Britain's moral authority to make sure our position becomes the international standard.' But international standards have changed since Putin launched his onslaught against Ukraine in 2022, and landmines turn out to have their uses after all. Banning them might have been a luxury cause for a dominant West in the years of safety after the Cold War, yet no longer. Britain has not publicly opposed the decision of five allies to abandon the Ottawa Convention. Instead, as Europe re-arms to deter Putin, what was once unconscionable has become unavoidable. Of all the countries that will now equip themselves with landmines, Lithuania's position is perhaps the most sensitive. The largest of the Baltic states, it must defend two hostile frontiers totalling 450 miles: with Belarus to the east and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the west. In between lies a vital corridor of territory, known as the Suwalki Gap, which slices across the only overland route for Nato reinforcements to reach the Baltic states. If Putin's tanks are going to come, they will strike across this peaceful landscape of scattered villages and whitewashed churches, amid green, untouched forest. And the most vulnerable area of Lithuania is probably a parrot's beak of territory jutting into Belarus, where no village is more than a few miles from a hostile border on three sides. Scarcely anywhere is closer to the frontier than the wooden homes of the hamlet of Šadžiūnai at the very tip of the beak. This densely wooded area, inhabited by deer and the occasional wolf, is already highly sensitive. Walk through pine and birch trees, and you suddenly encounter a sign reading 'STOP' and: 'Enter only upon authorisation by State Border Guard Service.' With that permission, you can go forward to see a silver fence reinforced with coiled razor wire gashing its way through the forest. This is Nato's border with Belarus and, in effect, the frontline of the Western world. Any new minefields would probably be laid here, making the warning signs even more menacing. All of this fills Jadvyga Mackevic with dread. She lives in one of Šadžiūnai's modest houses – hers is painted green and yellow - just a stone's throw from the border fence. She was born here in 1941, the year of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, and her earliest memory is of the retreating Germans burning down Šadžiūnai in 1944. 'I was crying very much: my village was on fire,' says Mackevic, now 84. 'It's the only memory I have, that I was crying.' Today, she views the prospect of another war with fear and fatalism. 'If God wills it, maybe it will pass through,' she says. 'But war is war. It's better never to repeat it. I am very afraid of war. For us, we will die soon, but our grandchildren need to live.' Mackevic has three grandchildren and two great-grandsons, aged five and eight. Her offspring have long since left the area; now only 13 people live in Šadžiūnai, all of them elderly. Their gardens and windows overlook one of the most tense and hostile borders in Europe. Mackevic has no wish to find landmines being planted near her front door. 'I wouldn't be happy with this idea,' she says. 'Maybe animals will walk through and they will explode. I have no energy to go to the forest any more. I don't walk there, except to gather firewood. But I cannot change anything. It will be like it will be.' She has not personally made any preparations for the worst, but in a country where many people view Putin's assault on Ukraine as a terrible augury of what could befall Lithuania, plenty of ordinary families have done what they can to be ready. In the village of Didieji Baušiai, about a mile from the border, Jurate Penkovskiene, 37, and her husband, Vladislav, 41, have dug a bunker in the garden and filled their basement with emergency provisions, including 15 litres of water, a medical kit and three shelves of tinned food. Above all they are thinking of their new baby, born only six months ago. Every so often, their windows are shaken by the boom of heavy guns from a military base 20 miles away, where German soldiers are conducting exercises as part of Nato's deployment to protect its Baltic members. 'Why did the Russians want to attack Ukraine? They want more territory,' says Penkovskiene. 'So, probably they will want our territory too.' She believes that Lithuania's membership of Nato is the best guarantee of the country's security, stressing how 'there's a big difference between fighting alone or fighting with allies', but she is not convinced of the case for landmines. 'For defence it may be good, but for people it's not good because the mines might stay there,' says Penkovskiene. 'I would be concerned because now we can go to the forest freely. But after that, it would not be so psychologically easy to go to the forest.' Lithuania's government does not dispute the gravity of its decision to make landmines, 22 years after the country signed the Ottawa Convention, which was once supported by every EU member. Yet Dovile Šakalienė, the defence minister, advances a case based on simple necessity. 'Our security environment has fundamentally deteriorated since we joined [the Convention] in 2003,' she says. 'Russia's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, its systematic violations of international law, and its military provocations on our borders with both Russia and Belarus pose an existential threat.' Šakalienė stresses that Russia never tied its own hands by signing the Ottawa Convention. On the contrary, even as European states were destroying their own stockpiles, Russia was busily producing more landmines than any other country in the world, amassing over 26 million by 2024, many of which are now killing or maiming Ukrainians. 'Russia is not a party to the Convention and continues to aggressively use and stockpile anti-personnel mines, putting us at a strategic disadvantage,' she says. 'In this context, it is essential that our armed forces have the flexibility and freedom to use all available means to defend our population and Nato's eastern flank.' Lithuania, which plans to spend 5.5 per cent of GDP on defence – more than double Britain's current level of 2.3 per cent – has allocated €800 million (£680 million) to manufacture anti-tank and anti-personnel landmines. Šakalienė emphasises the cold reality of the Russian threat. 'Attacks are happening already,' she says. 'If you map out all the ongoing hybrid attacks, including cyber attacks, border provocations and constant information operations, you will see an unprecedented level of hostile behaviour from Russia directed at Lithuania and the region.' Šakalienė believes that Putin could attack Nato territory in just two or three years. 'Both Nato and our military intelligence has repeatedly warned, since last year, that Russia may be ready for an incursion into Nato territory within three to five years, roughly by 2028-2030,' she says. 'And this timeline could accelerate. If negotiations on Ukraine end poorly, and Russia uses any ceasefire to rebuild its forces and boost its military-industrial capacity, possibly aided by the lifting of sanctions, then this threat window could shrink to just two to three years.' Like many Lithuanians, Šakalienė reacts viscerally to Putin's renewal of Russian imperialism. Her own mother was born in exile in Siberia, one of many thousands of Lithuanians who suffered deportation during the Soviet occupation. For most of the 20th century, Lithuania endured either Nazi or Soviet domination; as recently as January 1991, when the Soviet Union was in the throes of collapse, Mikhail Gorbachev tried to crush the country's bid for freedom by sending tanks into the capital, Vilnius, killing 14 civilians. 'Russia's intentions toward its Baltic neighbours are openly aggressive and imperialistic,' says Šakalienė. 'History shows that Russia does not honour agreements and only respects strength. For Lithuania and the entire region, the only effective response is unwavering defence readiness, allied unity and credible deterrence.' Having suffered so grievously at Russia's hands, Lithuania's government and people are determined never to lose their independence again. Seized with the urgency of the threat, its parliament decided almost unanimously in May to leave the Ottawa Convention, with 107 votes in favour, none against and three abstentions. As defence minister last year, Laurynas Kasčiūnas drew up the plan requiring landmines to resist any invasion. He describes how these weapons are a vital component of Lithuania's 'counter-mobility' strategy, designed to prevent the enemy from ranging freely across its territory. ' All mines – anti-tank mines, anti-transport mines, anti-personnel mines – combined with each other is a vital obstacle for an enemy,' he says. 'They need time to overcome it, and you can smash them with your [long range] fire to stop them, and to win time to re-group, to reinforce your capabilities, for the allies to come.' Kasčiūnas explains how landmines will form part of a 'whole system' of defence, including physical anti-tank barriers like dragon's teeth, along with killer drones and long-range strike weapons. His visits to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion convinced him of the folly of binding Lithuania's hands with well-intentioned agreements like the Ottawa Convention. 'The Ukrainians said to me very clearly: when you still have time, please get out of all conventions and be prepared to use all capabilities to defend your country,' he says. Lithuania will make its own landmines – Kasčiūnas says that 'hundreds of thousands' will be required – and then store them close to the borders with Russia and Belarus for deployment in a crisis. The consequences of any deployment threaten to be long-lasting. In 2023, at least 2,000 people were killed by landmines around the world, of whom 84 per cent were civilians and a quarter were children. The weapons continue to plague countries such as Angola, where civil war ended more than 20 years ago, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina. As for the safety of civilians in Lithuania, Kasčiūnas stresses that in normal times, the mines will remain in storage without being laid. Even if the situation escalates and they are deployed, modern mines can be armed remotely. They could be left in a safe condition until the government decided to activate them, which would only happen in an emergency, with due warning for the population. 'Now it's possible to overcome that kind of danger for civilian people,' says Kasčiūnas. And he stresses one hard reality: 'If you will not use the mines, Russia will use them. Simple as that,' he says. 'They will use them anyway. They're not going to stick to humanitarian rules or something like that. It's impossible, it's contrary to their philosophy.' Ukraine provides a tragic illustration of this inescapable truth. Over 20 years ago, the country ratified the Ottawa Convention and destroyed most of its landmines. Yet thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory have been contaminated with these weapons anyway by the Russian invaders. In the new Europe where every country is rethinking its defence, the deadly iron curtain that may soon descend in the scenic forests of Lithuania and its Nato neighbours is the most vivid sign of what could lie ahead.
