HRW: Ukraine Uses Banned Landmines

By Staff, Agencies

Human Rights Watch [HRW] said on Friday that it uncovered new evidence of the indiscriminate use by Ukrainian forces of banned anti-personnel landmines against Russian troops.

The group called on Ukraine's government to follow through with a commitment made earlier this month not to employ such weapons, investigate their suspected use and hold accountable those responsible.

“The Ukrainian government’s pledge to investigate its military’s apparent use of banned anti-personnel mines is an important recognition of its duty to protect civilians,” Steve Goose, Human Rights Watch's arms director, said in a statement.

HRW said it shared its findings with the Ukrainian government in a May letter to which it received no response.

The new report is a follow-on to a January report that Ukrainian soldiers fired rockets that scattered thousands of PMF-1 mines in Russian-occupied areas in and around the eastern city of Izium between April and September 2022, when Kiev's forces recaptured it.

The latest report said that fresh evidence of Ukrainian forces' use of anti-personnel mines in 2002 came from photographs posted online by an individual working in eastern Ukraine that showed warhead sections of Uragan 220mm rockets.

Those rockets each indiscriminately disburse 312 PFM-1S anti-personnel mines, said the report.