NATO To Mine The Entire Border With Belarus And Russia From Finland To Poland
- 24.06.2025, 19:48
A new iron curtain.
Five countries bordering Russia and Belarus in eastern Europe intend to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines in order to use them to defend their borders. By the end of June, they plan to formally notify the UN of their withdrawal from the treaty so that they can start mining possible invasion routes of Vladimir Putin's army from the end of this year, writes The Telegraph.
From Lapland in northern Finland to the Lublin voivodeship in eastern Poland, the entire 3,440-kilometer-long eastern border of Europe and the NATO alliance is "about to drop a new and explosive iron curtain," the newspaper notes. All EU countries have long signed a UN treaty aimed at banning the use of anti-personnel mines, but the situation has changed radically because of the war in Ukraine, which is now in its fourth year. According to Western military and intelligence estimates, Russia may launch military action against one or more NATO countries within 2-5 years.
Russia itself has never limited itself to the framework of an international treaty. According to the Landmine Monitor 2024 Report, while European countries have been destroying stockpiles of anti-personnel mines over the past two-plus decades, Russia has only replenished its own. Last year, it accumulated more than 26 million of these devices and is actively using them in Ukraine. By comparison, second-place Pakistan has 6 million such mines and third-place China has 5 million.
One of the most active campaigners for banning anti-personnel mines was Princess Diana. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government joined her campaign, banning the production and export of such mines four weeks after coming to power in 1997. Now the British authorities have not publicly opposed the decision of the five Eastern European countries to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention. On the contrary, European countries are rapidly arming themselves to counter Russian aggression.
The Baltic states could become its first victims, NATO military planners estimate. Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis suggested that Putin's authorities could use the Moscow-Kaliningrad train passing through Lithuania as a pretext, Bloomberg writes: organize its stop and send troops to "rescue" Russian citizens. Russia may try to introduce troops into other Baltic states, take control of the Baltic Sea and seize the Suvalki corridor (a stretch of land between Lithuania and Poland that separates Belarus from the Kaliningrad region).
Lithuania is in the most difficult position in this situation. The largest of the Baltic states will need to mine the border with Belarus, which Putin has already used to invade Ukraine and may use again as a springboard, as well as the border with the Kaliningrad region.
"Since we joined the Ottawa Convention in 2003, our security situation has deteriorated significantly," Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Šakalene told The Telegraph. - Russia's illegal war of conquest against Ukraine, its systematic violations of international law and military provocations on our borders with Russia and Belarus pose an existential threat."
Lithuania, which plans to raise defense spending to 5.5 percent of GDP, has earmarked 800 million euros for the production of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.