Biden genehmigt Antipersonenminen für die Ukraine und macht damit seine eigene Politik zunichte

The US will provide anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, in a reversal of the Biden administration’s previous opposition:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/11/19/biden-landmines-ukraine-russia/
> Biden had been reluctant to supply Ukraine with the mines in the face of concerns within his own administration and from a wide range of anti-mine advocates who say the risk to civilians is unacceptably high. But Russia’s battlefield progress in recent months has forced the White House to find fresh ways to help Kyiv, especially following the victory of President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to steer the conflict toward a swift conclusion.
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> Neither Russia nor the United States is one of the 164 parties to the Ottawa Convention, also known as the Mine Ban Treaty, that prohibits the deployment and transfer of antipersonnel land mines. Biden in 2022 revived an Obama-era policy that banned the transfer and use of U.S. antipersonnel land mines outside the Korean Peninsula.
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> One Ukrainian official welcomed any policy change despite the potential risks that would come with widespread deployment of the weapons.
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> “Russia uses them anyway,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity.
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> But some human rights campaigners said that the U.S. decision to provide antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine — a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty — is a black mark against Washington.
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> “It’s a shocking and devastating development,” said Mary Wareham, deputy director of the crisis, conflict and arms division at Human Rights Watch, the advocacy group, who said that even nonpersistent mines hold risks for civilians, require complicated cleanup efforts and are not always reliably deactivated.

The article says that “use of the mines would be limited to Ukrainian territory,” that Ukraine has “committed to not deploying the mines in densely populated areas,” and that the mines are “non-persistent” (automatically self-deactivating over time).

It sucks to do this, but Ukraine has been very committed to accepting the long-term risks that come from unexploded ordnance. There does not appear to be any real division within Ukraine as to their use, and in the end it is their decision to make about the needs of their own struggle in the face of an existential threat.

Hopefully when this is all over, Ukraine’s many supporters will continue to remember Ukraine, and will support Ukraine through the long and tedious, but critically necessary, process of cleaning up the aftermath. Just as we supported them through the war.