The Defense Department confirmed that the United States would provide to Ukraine antipersonnel landmines.
Yesterday in Laos, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III explained why the U.S. would provide antipersonnel landmines to Ukraine and how what the U.S. would provide is different than the landmines the Ukrainians are currently producing for themselves.
“What we’ve seen most recently is because the Russians have been so unsuccessful in the way that they have been fighting they’ve kind of changed their tactics a bit and they don’t lead with their mechanized forces anymore,” Austin said. “They lead with dismounted forces who are able to close in and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanized forces.”
In the face of that changing tactic, Austin said, the Ukrainians have been manufacturing their own landmines to slow down Russian advances.
“They’re fabricating their own antipersonnel landmines right now,” he said. “The landmines that we would look to provide them would be landmines that are not persistent. You know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate. And that makes it, you know, far more safe eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.”
Singh told reporters today that the Ukrainians have assured the U.S. that the landmines, when they arrive, will be used only inside Ukrainian space.
“Absolutely they have committed that they’re going to use these mines in their own territory,” she said. “I should have added that they’re not going to use them in populated areas.”
Source: U.S. Department of Defense
