For context, before people jump to conclusions:
Russia is not party to this landmine treaty, and Ukraine having to adhere to this treaty is essentially forcing them to fight against someone who plays dirty while having their arm tied around their back.
Other countries that have announced that they will be withdrawing from the Ottowa Treaty are: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (Coincidentally all bordering Russia or Belarus)
Finland made me laugh. I don’t think Russia has enough Vodka to convince the officers to try that again. Now add landmines lol.
Even though Winter War was really embarrassing for Soviet Union, they did defeat Finland in that and in Continuation War
This is one of those situations where adhering to the treaty doesn’t actually do anything positive, it just handicaps Ukraine’s options.
A primary reason for the treaty is that landmines are indiscriminant and they last well beyond the length of the war they’re placed for. So civilians are at risk decades after a war ends. The intent is to prevent ANY mines from being placed, by having everyone agree not to place them ahead of time.
However, Russia is going to place mines anyway no matter what. So there are going to be landmines in the area because of them regardless even if Ukraine doesn’t place their own, so the danger will already be there, except Ukraine will have one less tool to fight with.
Adhering to the treaty would result in there only being half as much anti-personel mines for civilians to step onto after the war, so it would still be doing something very positive. That being said, I do understand the reasons for withdrawing from the treaty. I miss the optimistic world where the treaty was drafted up, when it briefly seemed that most issues could be solved with multilateral international cooperation :(
I initially disagreed with you but you argued solidly.
Don’t like it but I get it.
Completely fair. When your neighbour is as untrustworthy and aggressively expansionist as the Russian government I would line the border with mines too.
