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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22236015
Nov 19 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden has approved provision of anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, a U.S. official told Reuters, a step that could help slow Russian advances in its east, especially when used along with other munitions from the United States.
The United States expects Ukraine to use the mines in its own territory, though it has committed not to use them in areas populated with its own civilians, the official said. The Washington Post first reported the development.
This exact scenario is why warcrimes have to have meaningful punishment. As soon as one side ignores them and there aren’t consequences, this is where you find youself :/
Edit: I guess there are sanctions, but clearly that’s not enough.
The laws on warcrimes have always been a sort of mutual agreement, and they often end up being broken in reciprocity. One side commits perfidy, the other side is less inclined to take prisoners alive in return, as happened in the WWII Pacific theater.
I think its naive to think that there can ever be such a thing as a “good clean war” with the international community acting as objective and powerful referees throwing around red cards.
Russia hasn’t given a fuck about UXO in civilian areas for the entirety of the war, so I don’t see this as being an escalation. It’s their land, they’ll have incentive to take caution in their use.