The Daily Populous Sunday June 29th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by kyivindependent.com and submitted by AdSpecialist6598

President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines, a step that follows the Baltic nations and Poland's move to boost their defense as the war rages on in Ukraine.

The 1997 treaty, joined by over 160 countries, bans the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines in efforts to protect civilians from the scattered explosives that could still injure them long after the conflict is over.

"Russia has never been a party to this convention and uses anti-personnel mines extremely cynically," Zelensky said in justifying the decision. "And not only now, in the war against Ukraine. This is the signature style of Russian killers — to destroy life by all methods at their disposal.

Earlier in March, the Baltic states and Poland announced their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, a significant shift in defense policy that shows how countries near Ukraine are preparing for a potential war in Europe.

Anti-personnel mines are scattered across the battlefield in Ukraine, with soldiers and civilians often losing their feet or limbs due to detonations. Territories liberated by Ukraine since 2022 have been heavily covered with mines, making it extremely difficult and dangerous to clear them. Russia has used more than a dozen variants of anti-personnel mines since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to Human Rights Watch's June report.

In a surprise move that angered Moscow, the Biden administration in 2024 approved the provision of anti-personnel mines to Ukraine. Then Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said it was to help Ukraine stall the Russian advances in the east as the front-line situation deteriorated.

"This is a step that the reality of war has long demanded," lawmaker Roman Kostenko, secretary of the parliament's defense committee, said in the Facebook post announcing a significant move forward in withdrawing from the major mine treaty.

Now that Zelensky signed the decree enacting the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, it will land on the parliament's table, Kostenko said. The dates when the decision will take effect are still unclear.

LumiereGatsby on June 29th, 2025 at 14:18 UTC »

I was there when this was signed in Ottawa.

They made a commercial of a victim with a blown off leg walking to the legislature with various walk of life people supporting her.

Took a bunch of takes. She struggled to shoot the scenes. She was a lovely child. A victim of land mines.

That said , I sadly see the need that would take hold of a seiged society for a last line of defence.

Really no idea how to look at this .. just sucks that Putin caused us to be here.

APraxisPanda on June 29th, 2025 at 13:07 UTC »

To be fair, Ukraine is not in a position to have their hands tied behind their backs right now. I know the concern is leftover mines, but at the rate things are going, those mines are gonna be Russia’s problem to deal with if nothing gives.

c0xb0x on June 29th, 2025 at 13:07 UTC »

They were still in it?!