Poland will use anti-personnel and anti-tank mines to protect its eastern border from the threat from Russia.
Poland's deputy defense minister has announced a decision to follow Ukraine in withdrawing from the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention. The treaty prohibits signatories from stockpiling or using anti-personnel mines, Sky News reports.
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The weapons can last for years and are known to have caused widespread suffering among civilians in former conflict zones in countries such as Cambodia, Angola and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Poland, which ratified the document in 2012 and completed the destruction of its domestic stockpiles of anti-personnel mines in 2016, has said it plans to start producing the weapons.
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“These mines are one of the most important elements of the defense structure that we are building on NATO's eastern flank, in Poland, on the border with Russia in the north and Belarus in the east,” said Pawel Zalewski, Poland's deputy defense minister. “Poland must defend itself against Russia, a country that has very aggressive intentions towards its neighbors and which itself has never committed itself to the international treaty banning anti-personnel mines.”
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, neighboring countries have been reviewing their participation in the international treaty. Last year, Poland, along with Finland, the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — and Ukraine, announced their withdrawal from the treaty. Kyiv explained this by the need to defend itself with weapons that the enemy has been using since the first day of a full-scale war.
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