KYIV, Ukraine — The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will give Ukraine antipersonnel mines to help it slow Russia’s battlefield advances, marking the second major shift on U.S. military support for Kyiv in days.
After allowing Ukraine to use longer-range American missiles to launch strikes deeper into Russia, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the shift in Washington’s policy on antipersonnel land mines for Ukraine was needed to counter changing Russian tactics.
The war, which reached its 1,000-day milestone on Tuesday, has largely been going Russia’s way. Moscow’s bigger army is slowly pushing Ukraine’s forces backward in the eastern Donetsk region, while Ukrainian civilians are being maimed and killed by Russian drones and missiles often fired from inside Russia.
Individual ground troops, rather than forces more protected in armored carriers, are leading the Russian battlefield advance, so Ukraine has “a need for things that can help slow down that effort,” Austin said during a trip to Laos.
The announcement comes two months before Donald Trump replaces Joe Biden in the White House. Trump has pledged to swiftly end the war and has criticized the amount the U.S. has spent on supporting Ukraine.
Biden administration officials say they are determined to help Ukraine as much as possible before he leaves office, and they announced Wednesday that the U.S. intends to cancel half of the debt — some $4.6 billion — Ukraine owes to the country. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said U.S. lawmakers were informed of the move this week, and that he doesn’t expect them to pass a resolution of disapproval to try to stop the loan forgiveness because of the bipartisan support for Ukraine in the current Congress.
The steps taken to help Ukraine — along with unconfirmed reports Wednesday of Ukraine firing a certain British cruise missile at Russia for the first time — were likely to vex Moscow.
The U.S. and some other Western embassies in Kyiv temporarily closed on Wednesday in response to the threat of a potentially major Russian aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital.
Humanitarian groups have long criticized the use of antipersonnel mines because they present a lingering threat to civilians. Amnesty International called the U.S. decision “reckless” and a “deeply disappointing setback.” And Norway’s foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, called it “very problematic” because Ukraine is a signatory to an international convention opposing the use of land mines.
Austin pointed out that Ukraine already makes its own antipersonnel mines, and that the U.S. has been providing Ukraine with anti-tank mines. He also tried to allay concerns about the new mines the U.S. is giving Kyiv, saying they are not persistent, meaning troops can control when they would self-detonate.
“That makes it far more safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own,” Austin said.
The mines are are electrically fused and powered by batteries so that when the battery runs out, they won’t detonate. They can become inert in anywhere from four hours to two weeks.
Russia already uses land mines in Ukraine, but those don’t become inert over time.
The United States also sought commitments from the Ukrainians on the use of the mines to limit harm to innocent civilians, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Ukraine would use the mines in its own country and would not put them in civilian populated areas.
The mines are contained in a $275 million package of new military assistance announced by the Biden administration Wednesday. Also included in the package are High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, as well as 155 mm and 105 mm artillery rounds, Javelin anti-armor munitions, and other equipment and spare parts.
The war has taken on a growing international dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the battlefield — a development that U.S. officials said prompted Biden’s policy shift on allowing Ukraine to fire longer-range U.S. missiles into Russia and that angered the Kremlin.
Britain had been quietly pressing the U.S. to ease restrictions on how Western-supplied missiles are used, and unconfirmed news reports Wednesday said Ukraine had fired British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles at Russia for the first time. British and Ukrainian officials didn’t confirm the reports.
Officials with France’s military and president’s office, meanwhile, declined to say whether Ukraine is using French long-range SCALP missiles to strike targets in Russia, citing France’s military secrecy policy. French President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing for such a step for months.
After the Biden administration allowed Ukraine to attack Russia with longer-range American-made ATACMS missiles, Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold for using his nuclear arsenal, with the new doctrine announced Tuesday permitting a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.
