Boom goes the convention
A single step. A soft click under the boot. Time freezes, breath stops, and the world shrinks to the deadly trap that has just been triggered – that moment is something most of Europe only knows from the movies.
The Baltic states and Poland announced their plans on Tuesday to pull out of the convention banning these anti-personnel landmines. The process is not yet finalised and must be confirmed within each parliament, but after lengthy debates for over a year, the verdict is unanimous: the tensions with their neighbour Russia aren't going away any time soon. All options to strengthen the region's defence capabilities must be considered, ”regardless of how the hostilities in Ukraine develop,” said the Latvian defence minister Andris Sprūds.
The 1997 Ottawa Convention, currently ratified by over 160 countries, including all NATO member states minus the US, aims to reduce the casualties and suffering caused by anti-personnel landmines. Most of the time, the victims of these mines are not soldiers but civilians, often long after the conflicts have ended. Since the treaty's adoption, landmine casualties have been reduced worldwide, but there are still thousands of victims every year.
By 2005, all three Baltic states had ratified the Ottawa Convention, while Poland joined in 2012. Finland may withdraw next: a citizen initiative reached over 50,000 signatures in December. However, the parliament speaker refused to take it to the parliamentary session in February, saying that citizen initiatives can't override international treaties. Finland's decision is still up in the air, as it is working on its own analysis, expected to be done in the upcoming weeks.
Serious talk of withdrawing from the treaty doesn't exactly come as a shock from countries bordering Russia – especially when (a) Russia never signed it in the first place, and (b) they've been laying landmines across Ukraine like there's no tomorrow.
However, the use of landmines presents a moral dilemma. On one hand, they could be effective in keeping Russia out; on the other, civilians would suffer. There were 608 landmine casualties recorded in Ukraine in 2022, the second-highest number in the world after Syria who had 834 casualties.
Exiting the convention doesn't mean immediate freedom to act – it's a six-month exit process, and the Baltics and Poland could only start laying out minefields and full-speed production after that. Furthermore, the Latvian defence ministry says it's rather a precaution, and it doesn't mean that Latvia will start ‘mining up'.
Then, there is the green border situation. The neighbours of Russia and Belarus have seen a surge of migrants crossing the so-called ‘green borders' – the many forests, meadows, or swamps that constitute the north eastern land borders – to reach the EU. This ‘operation' has been allegedly orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow in a hybrid warfare move. For now, they have to avoid fences and armed border control. Adding mines to that is a recipe for disaster.
Mikael Kataja also contributed to this story.