With the threat of Russia on their doorstep, five nations are bolstering their defences by turning to a tactic the world tried to ban

Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have announced they will leave the Ottawa Convention of 1997, which prohibits anti-personnel landmines. Later in June, all five states are expected to give the United Nations formal notice of their withdrawal, allowing them to manufacture, stockpile and deploy such munitions from the end of the year. Together, they guard 2,150 miles of Nato’s frontier with Russia and its client state of Belarus.

Military planners are already working out which expanses of European forest and lake land would be planted with these deadly devices, laden with high explosives and shrapnel, if Vladimir Putin were to mass his forces against the alliance.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
      242·
      1 day ago

      This is absurd nonsense even from the military point of view, it’s Stupid Man’s Maginot Line and in case of real attack will be broken effortlessly. It’s pure political posturing, only people that suffer from it will be random civilians.

      • Ferk@lemmy.ml
        21·
        1 day ago

        it’s Stupid Man’s Maginot Line and in case of real attack will be broken effortlessly

        The Maginot Line was not broken, it was avoided. The nazis were essentially forced to take a different route to reach France, through Belgium. The issue was that it gave the defenders a false sense of security and the alternate route was not well protected (they thought the rough terrain would be a deterrent). It was an error in strategy, but the line itself held.

      • Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca
        42·
        1 day ago

        Better to wait until hostilities start and seed the enemy territory on the other side of your border with mines to cut off their initial force from getting backup than to endanger your own side with explosives that may fail to deactivate when decommissioned.

        Also if they can be deactivated remotely, what stops your enemy from figuring out the kill code.

        • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.comEnglish
          121·
          21 hours ago

          Russia who still fights with meat wave attacks

          Here we go again with the literal Nazi propaganda of the “human meat wave Asiatic hordes”.

          • Ferk@lemmy.ml
            21·
            1 day ago

            Do we know if the idea is to really have only mines?

            The article gives as example some razor wire reinforced fence area through the forest that’s likely gonna be targeted (the picture does not show what’s on the floor, but you can see the area has surveillance cameras too). I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea is to have some multi-layered protection, Surovikin-like, but of course the mines is what will break the news, since they could affect civilians the most.

            • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
              51·
              1 day ago

              I would say even the mines would be too expensive (especially at the time entire NATO have problem with ammo production), everything is probably just one of the warmongering masturbation ideas that Baltics produce in higher amount than any weapon. Even if realised it would be at most something like Poland did at Belarussian border, so it would be basically a fence to stop and kill unarmed migrants and it would also tie entire armies of those countries to watch it.