Kyiv: The Biden administration will allow Ukraine to use American-supplied antipersonnel land mines to help it slow Russia’s battlefield progress in the war, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday, as the U.S. and some other Western embassies in Kyiv stayed closed after a threat of a major Russian aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Laos, Austin said the shift in Washington’s policy on anrtipersonnel land mines for Ukraine follows changing tactics by the Russians.
Austin said Russian ground troops are leading the movement on the battlefield, rather than forces more protected in armored carriers, so Ukraine has “a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians.”
Russia’s bigger army is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region.
Antipersonnel land mines have long been criticized by charities and activists because they present a lingering threat to civilians. Austin countered that argument.
“The land mines that we would look to provide them would be land mines that are not persistent, you know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it far more safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own,” Austin said.
Nonpersistent land mines generally require batteries, so overtime they become unable to detonate, making them safer for innocent civilians than those that remain deadly for years.
He noted that Ukraine is currently manufacturing its own antipersonnel land mines.
The U.S. already provides Ukraine with antitank land mines. Russia has routinely used land mines in the war, but those do not become inert overtime.
The American diplomatic mission in Kyiv said it had received a warning of a potentially significant Russian air attack on the capital and was staying shut for the day. It anticipated a quick return to regular operations.
The Spanish, Italian and Greek embassies also shut to the public for the day, but the U.K. government and France said that their embassies remained open.
AP