– It shows a ruthless warfare that has become Russia’s trademark. They have no respect for civilian life, says Lieutenant General Arne Bård Dalhaug.
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On Thursday, the human rights organization announced Human Rights Watch that Russian forces have dispersed banned anti-personnel mines in and around the city of Kharkiv.
Anti-personnel means that they are designed to hit people walking.
The Russians POM-3-minene is equipped with a seismic sensor that detects movements. If a human or animal enters this zone, an explosive charge will be launched into the air. When the charge explodes, people and animals within a radius of 16 meters will be in great danger of being killed or maimed.
This is in contrast to tank mines, which are not banned. A man who moves should not be enough to detonate such a mine.
According to HRW, Ukraine does not have these mines in its arsenal. Russia, on the other hand, has.
The mines have now been found in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine, the organization writes. The region’s largest city, also called Kharkiv, is home to 1.5 million people.
–– No respect for civilian life
– This is in line with a completely ruthless warfare against civilians, which is one of the trademarks of Russia. We have seen it in Grozny in Chechnya and in Aleppo in Syria. And it is now clearly continuing in Ukraine. They have no respect for civilian life, says Arne Bård Dalhaug to Aftenposten.
The retired lieutenant general led the Osse Observatory Corps (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) in rebel-held Luhansk between 2016 and 2019.
Dalhaug says he is not surprised. He says this is not the first time that there have been reports that the Russians have used ammunition that many other countries have signed that they will not use.
He points out that it is already known that Russia has used cluster munitions in Kharkiv. It is also a type of weapon that a large majority of the world’s states have committed to stop using. This is because it involves a great risk of hitting civilians. Cluster munitions scatter small explosives over a large area.
Asks the countries of the world to condemn Russia
164 states have signed on The International Mining Convention from 1997. It prohibits all production, storage, sale and use of anti-personnel mines. Russia is not among the signatories. The United States, China and India have not signed either.
– But they follow the terms in practice, while everything indicates that Russia does not respect this, says Dalhaug.
Steve Goose, who heads Human Rights Watch’s weapons section, now calls on the world to strongly condemn Russia’s use of these weapons.
–Will not be registered
The Russian mines are dropped from planes or fired using artillery. This means that they spread over large areas, and it is difficult to know where they land.
– The delivery will be imprecise, and you will not be able to register the minefield and mark the outer edges, as you normally should. This means you lose control, says Dalhaug.
However, the POM-3 mines must be self-destructive. They are programmed to turn themselves off after a period of time. It is used as an argument that the civilian population is not so vulnerable.
But Dalhaug believes there is little reason to believe that this will work one hundred percent. He points out that Russian weapons so far in the war have had a large percentage of errors.
He says mines will pose a significant threat to the civilian population of Ukraine for a long time to come. In the Russian-backed separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, large areas are already covered by mines after eight years of war. Russian forces have also laid out anti-personnel mines there, according to Dalhaug.
Ukraine also accuses Russia of laying mines in the Black Sea. In his speech to the Storting on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj warned that these are floating around and are a danger to all ships and all countries around the Black Sea.
Dalhaug says it will take at least a decade to make the country mine-free again. Large areas will be useless for a long time after the war.
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