As a Croatian, I'm really glad to hear these type of news. However, also as a Croatian, I don't quite buy the news. I'm sure great progress was made but it's never going to reach 100%; It's just the nature of these damn things in combination with our geography and where the frontlines were.
It means there are no known areas that are still littered with landmines, but yes, that's not a guarantee there aren't any.
Not Croatian but Bosnian, 2030 is our target for this milestone and we have to keep de-mining ~70 square kilometres every year to be able to hit that milestone.
I visited a friend in Sarajevo in 2014. Lovely small walkable city in a little valley, enjoyed the food and did some of the tours of old war sites inside the city and on the edge of the city. It boggled my mind then that the locals warned me not to go hiking through the pretty forest out of town because of land mines; it was hard to believe a country in Europe would have that problem in the 21st century!
True that. I used to work in the Netherlands, and sometimes it seemed like every other week the rail network was disrupted by a newly-discovered unexploded bomb, left over from the plastering the Allied air forces gave the Dutch railways.
Indeed. With landmines from 90's at least general areas are known, there's signage and if you're not being stupid by venturing way past signage it's all really safe to be around.
As German, I can say, as long as not someone used mines out of glass, they will rot away in some decades. We still have some woods where you could step on glass mines....
But happy to hear the news. Some years ago as I was urban exploring the airfield in Zeljava it has hit someone nearby the field. Happily I just saw the ambulance and the police.
10 years is a long time, but 10 years after a war is not a long time. Damages to building still remains, mines and plenty of unexploded ordinances will remain, and psychological scars are still very strong.
Something I have really wondered is, why aren't there stronger incentives to build mines with a mechanism that disables them after a certain time has passed? There must be tactical and strategical reasons which are regarded more important, but surely the party using them for defending their own land ought to have an interest in not having to deal with this threat for decades after the war has ended, and an aggressor who wishes to take over an area should have the same incentives.
Or are the reasons technical, that it is simply too difficult to develop a reliable mechanism for disabling them?
“The Department will continue its commitment not to employ persistent landmines.
For the purposes of this policy, ‘persistent landmines’ means landmines that do not
incorporate self-destruction mechanisms and self-deactivation features. The Department will only employ, develop, produce, or otherwise acquire landmines that are non-persistent, meaning they must possess self destruction mechanisms and self-
deactivation features.”
“ For example, all activated landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in 30 days or less after emplacement and will possess a back-up self-deactivation feature. Some landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in shorter periods of time, such as two hours or forty-eight hours.”
This distinguishes “self-destruct” where the mine blows itself up and “self-deactivation” where the mine disarms itself. The first is safer because it doesn’t leave explosive material behind, which could chemicaly detoriate and become unstable decades later. The second is used as a failsafe in case the self-destruct fails.
> Or are the reasons technical
They certainly were when the really old mines were made. Some of them are nothing more than just spring loaded pressure plates. But today modern landmines are much more sophisticated. Some of them can distinguish the seismic signature or a truck from a tank. There are also radio controlled mine fields where soldiers can remotely activate / deactivate the whole mine field as the threat evolves.
As someone else pointed out, the short story is cost. Mines are cheap, make them more advanced and they are not cheap.
That said, even if the trigger is disabled, it's still an explosive device and should still be cleared (or never placed in the first place, as the Ottawa treaty says which the US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan are not a part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty)
The treaty also only covers anti-personnel mines, anti-vehicle mines are still perfectly fine (as well as other nasty shit like, anti-handling devices). The US has the right idea by mandating that all mines detonate after 30 days, even if it adds cost and complexity
Cost/manufacturing complexity. If you are country struggling to defend your self you don't think problems in 30 years if today problem is does the country exists or not. Might be difficult to put your self to a small defending countries shoes which is absolute running our of resources.
First, there should be maps and plans for all mine fields to know the exact position. But this war was insidious, and mines were planted without any method.
I'm guessing it's the latter, because you have to keep the mine-disabling mechanisms working and powered up through possible adverse weather and environmental conditions for long enough that the conflict has a fair chance of having ended.
I had the good fortune of going to Croatia (as an American) for work about 10 years ago, and I milked that trip hard. What a beautiful country. Dubrovnik, Split, Hvar Island, it was pretty magical.
I did some off road travelling in Croatia about 15 years ago, thanks GPS driving us into some farming roads.
Only when I got out of it, I realised how stupid idea that was to keep following the GPS, on some country side villages the markings of the war were still visible, with abandoned buildings full of bullet holes.
Naturally having mines still around was a possibility that I completly forgot about.
Think of it this way: bullet holes are where the fighting took place, while front lines have fluctuated. You don't want to mine an area that your soldiers might want to advance through. Land mines are placed when front lines have stabilised (like they are right now in Ukraine) to prevent the other side from advancing through. You only do that once your side has no intention of advancing further.
As such, land mines were usually properly documented and clearly marked as such after the war with giant skulls and red tapes, usually with some combo of words "PAZI MINE" ("beware, mines"). So while there are still rural areas that are littered with bullet holes, that does not mean those same areas were full of mines. It's also highly unlikely for a mine to be on any road, especially if it looks fairly well-maintained. You can take a road going through the minefield just fine, but you should never be one of those urban explorers that intentionally strays off of the road to look at the ruins on the side of that road.
Just this week I talked to a person doing tree pruning/forestry, they were negotiating a job in a rural area in Croatia (wider Karlovac area).
The particular patch of land is still suspected to contain mines, although "in theory" they were all cleared out.
The client didn't want to pay for the minesweeeping tech team to ensure safety, the workers didn't want to wade into a forest that might still be mined.
I suspect this is not an isolated case. It's far from over.
On the other hand nobody except the timber industry is cutting down a random tree in the middle of the woods. If you're trimming trees on a power line cut or at the edge of a clearing you're working somewhere that has already been gone over with men and machine to make that cut or clearing. So it might be one of those "basically no chance but due to rules... blah blah licensed professionals... blah blah insurance.... blah blah" where even though everyone knows it's fine the guy who has to do the work can't just go do the work without paying someone else to take the liability, etc, etc.
But then again, it's Croatia. They're not rich enough to afford that kind of dysfunction.
Yeah this was a few trees at the edge of the forest leaning over some houses, needed clearing. "Should be fine", but they're not keen on taking the (personal, physical) risk.
Thing is, you can't narrow it down to some acceptable level of risk. Mines are by definition stealthy, the only way to reduce the risk is to eliminate it by combing over everything, which is extremely hard, tedious, expensive, etc.
Genuine question, why is it very difficult even with our 21st century technology to accurately detect landmines for the purpose of destroying them after the war?
In order to be effective landmines need to be very close to the land surface thus should be easier enough to detect. Researcher in Japan has succesfully detect using low power radar sub-surface bamboo shoots since they are more expensive than bamboo shoots that are already grown over land surface.
For safe and fast detection mechanism close to the ground aerial UAV can be deploy to scan the the suspected land mine area.
Something is missing and don't add up here, perhaps someone can help explain the situations?
Placing landmines is probably among the shittiest and most vile things someone can do.
Knowing that ten, twenty, maybe 50 years after a conflict ends a completely innocent and unrelated person, maybe even not born at the time you did it, might die or get permanently disabled is a sick move.
Place where I grew up is still full of landmines (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and some of the people who placed those mines are government officials today, loved by EU because of their natural resources.
My gut feeling says that landmines can be more acceptable when placed in designated areas, for example a strip along the border with proper fencing. And maybe electronics to disable them when they are no longer necessary so they can be safely removed. This is a fundamentally different type of weapon than something that is hidden and anyone can inadvertently step/drive into.
Placing mines on your own border for defense purposes is one thing. Doing an aggression in an independent country, placing mines there is completely different.
And if it is correctly mapped and the map is well managed, then it is not quite as catastrophic as warlords simply burying mines somewhere indiscriminately.
I get what you're saying, but war is evil and sometimes you have to use methods to win that you would otherwise judge from the privileged position of peace.
I can't in good conscience say that the Ukrainians are evil for laying mines well after the invasion started, even though we all know that when the fighting eventually stops it's going to be a disaster to deal with.
Now the Balkans was a different story, where mines were intentionally laid in areas to target civilians. So in the end, like any device designed to kill, it's how and why it is employed that makes the act "evil" or not.
Fair enough, I wasn't super aware of scenarios people mining their own country for defense purposes and I agree that an argument can be made there, as it will not be civilians invading a different country.
As you are aware, in the Balkans this was exclusively done in areas to harm civilians, deep into other countries. I have a plum garden that was near the enemy lines in the 90s, and it was mined. We had to arrange demining squad to go through it, and I still have childhood memories of their tools (mine detectors) being left overnight at our place. Not a memory any person should have.
Also I think that if you live next to a warmongering country you certainly care more about making a military invasion the shittiest and the most vile thing for the aggressor that you can think of and landmines are cheap and effective there.
I think it's a sufficient trade off that landmines self-disable themselves in, say, 5 years or so. If the war continues you'll keep planting more and when it ends you'll just wait a few years and go collect them.
You don't just collect landmines though. The Germans in WW2 had maps which they handed over to the allies but it still killed hundreds of people clearing the landmines. Eventually they decided to use German POWs.
It is absolutely evil. Placing mines instantly puts you in the bad guy category as far as I'm concerned, no matter whom you claim you're "targetting". The Baltics withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty was an absolute disgrace. Indefensible.
Arms control treaties are effective only if they are banning weapons that aren't useful. The problem is that landmines are incredibly useful weapons. What that means is that every country that has signed up to the Ottawa treaty either expects never to get into a major war again, is planning on relying on its allies who haven't signed the treaty to deploy landmines for them, or is planning on ignoring the treaty and using landmines anyways if it gets into another major war again.
In that vein, the Baltics withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty is commendable because they've stopped lying to everybody about what they're going to do come wartime.
> The Baltics withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty was an absolute disgrace. Indefensible.
It is entirely defensible on account of wanting to reduce risk of being invaded by Russia.
PS: Poland also exited the treaty. I entirely support use of mines on territory of mu country for purposes such as reducing risk of Russian invading Poland again. Though deployment should not be premature.
But I hope that production and stockpiling of enough mines is ongoing.
If you think that is indefensible - are you aware of how WW II went for Baltics, Poland, Belarus? In Poland about 16% of population was murdered, in Belarus about 20% of population was murdered. And Poland and Baltics got decades of occupation on top of that. Belarus still has not managed to get from Russia's boot as of 2026.
In conflict between equals, landmines are the only practical way to restrict the mobility of the enemy. That's why 20% of Ukraine is contaminated by mines. If you were official and your choices would be losing and more people dying or placing more landmines that can be cleared over 20 years, what would you do?
Poland withdrew from the Ottawa Convention last month, with the aim of being able to lay anti-personnel mines along its eastern border.
Whether it does or not is an open-question, and while I understand it of course, the idea we're increasing the use of mines is a sad day. They're so indiscriminate and will no doubt cause injuries far into the future.
There's no border wall, just a typical bike road next to a small fence. So no, unless Poland is planning to blow up their own civilians, they won't mine their own country lol.
Placing landmines systematically during peacetime by a stable government-ran military should at least make clearing mines easier, and minefields better marked for locals. So, it's not completely indiscriminate. If it decreases war-related life loss (both direct and indirect), it's net positive
I live near part of the WW1 trenches. Most mines, bombs, etc. have been removed for decades now. Still, there are patches where the ground is so polluted with e.g. lead that nothing would grow. We tend to use that ground for companies and industrial things, but no worries, its completely safe for your health, citizen.
France still has WWI unexploded ordnance, and keep-out areas are still being de-mined.
This has been going on for a century now.
About 900 tons of explosives are removed each year. Completion in 700 years at the current rate.[1]
Does Australia have any landmines? I was under the impression that we had some areas with sea mines which had been swept but still weren't guaranteed safe, and that was it.
There are an estimated one to two million mines in the Korean DMZ. Emplaced by both the South and North Koreans since the 1950s. There is no possibility all those mines are mapped properly. And most of them are not the self-disabling/destroying kind. It will take generations to clear.
Poland and other countries that just abandoned the mine treaty border russia and belarus. You know, the country that launched and the country that allowed its land to launch largest war in europe since WW2.
Yes. But the what's the point of a convention about weapons that you only observe during peacetime and abandon as soon as war is at your gates?
I mean, I get it, I would be scared shitless too if I had Russia at my border. I'm not saying that Poland is bad for doing this (but I'm not saying it's good either). It's more of a general observation about this kind of treaties: (relatively) easy to get into during peacetime, hard to uphold when shit hits the fan.
As a Croatian, I'm really glad to hear these type of news. However, also as a Croatian, I don't quite buy the news. I'm sure great progress was made but it's never going to reach 100%; It's just the nature of these damn things in combination with our geography and where the frontlines were.
It means there are no known areas that are still littered with landmines, but yes, that's not a guarantee there aren't any.
Not Croatian but Bosnian, 2030 is our target for this milestone and we have to keep de-mining ~70 square kilometres every year to be able to hit that milestone.
I visited a friend in Sarajevo in 2014. Lovely small walkable city in a little valley, enjoyed the food and did some of the tours of old war sites inside the city and on the edge of the city. It boggled my mind then that the locals warned me not to go hiking through the pretty forest out of town because of land mines; it was hard to believe a country in Europe would have that problem in the 21st century!
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Hell you still find explosives from WW2 all over. It really is difficult.
WW2? We're still finding explosives from WW1 in Belgium
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True that. I used to work in the Netherlands, and sometimes it seemed like every other week the rail network was disrupted by a newly-discovered unexploded bomb, left over from the plastering the Allied air forces gave the Dutch railways.
Just few months ago, a 1,000-pound WWII bomb was found in Hong Kong. The city had been a battlefield between Japanese and Allied forces.
https://hongkongfp.com/2025/09/19/hong-kong-to-evacuate-6000...
Indeed. With landmines from 90's at least general areas are known, there's signage and if you're not being stupid by venturing way past signage it's all really safe to be around.
As German, I can say, as long as not someone used mines out of glass, they will rot away in some decades. We still have some woods where you could step on glass mines....
But happy to hear the news. Some years ago as I was urban exploring the airfield in Zeljava it has hit someone nearby the field. Happily I just saw the ambulance and the police.
TIL glass mines are a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasmine_43
How clever we are when we try to kill each other.
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I agree. It is good news for Croatia but there may be some that have escaped the net.
I stayed near Dubrovnik in the summer of 2005. There was a wildfire burning on on the hills behind us.
The fire traversed the hillside, and every hour or two a landmine would explode.
This was ten years after the war.
10 years is a long time, but 10 years after a war is not a long time. Damages to building still remains, mines and plenty of unexploded ordinances will remain, and psychological scars are still very strong.
Yep, the city center in Belgrade still has dilapidated, bombed buildings, 26 years after the bombs fell.
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Sounds like the cheapest way to remove mines from land.
It is not reliable though, so you still have to de-mine it the traditional way.
Something I have really wondered is, why aren't there stronger incentives to build mines with a mechanism that disables them after a certain time has passed? There must be tactical and strategical reasons which are regarded more important, but surely the party using them for defending their own land ought to have an interest in not having to deal with this threat for decades after the war has ended, and an aggressor who wishes to take over an area should have the same incentives.
Or are the reasons technical, that it is simply too difficult to develop a reliable mechanism for disabling them?
Modern landmines do have safety features like what you describe.
For example consider this Department of Defence policy from 2020: https://media.defense.gov/2020/Jan/31/2002242359/-1/-1/1/DOD...
“The Department will continue its commitment not to employ persistent landmines. For the purposes of this policy, ‘persistent landmines’ means landmines that do not incorporate self-destruction mechanisms and self-deactivation features. The Department will only employ, develop, produce, or otherwise acquire landmines that are non-persistent, meaning they must possess self destruction mechanisms and self- deactivation features.”
“ For example, all activated landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in 30 days or less after emplacement and will possess a back-up self-deactivation feature. Some landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in shorter periods of time, such as two hours or forty-eight hours.”
This distinguishes “self-destruct” where the mine blows itself up and “self-deactivation” where the mine disarms itself. The first is safer because it doesn’t leave explosive material behind, which could chemicaly detoriate and become unstable decades later. The second is used as a failsafe in case the self-destruct fails.
> Or are the reasons technical
They certainly were when the really old mines were made. Some of them are nothing more than just spring loaded pressure plates. But today modern landmines are much more sophisticated. Some of them can distinguish the seismic signature or a truck from a tank. There are also radio controlled mine fields where soldiers can remotely activate / deactivate the whole mine field as the threat evolves.
I thought it would be longer than 30 days.
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As someone else pointed out, the short story is cost. Mines are cheap, make them more advanced and they are not cheap.
That said, even if the trigger is disabled, it's still an explosive device and should still be cleared (or never placed in the first place, as the Ottawa treaty says which the US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan are not a part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty)
The treaty also only covers anti-personnel mines, anti-vehicle mines are still perfectly fine (as well as other nasty shit like, anti-handling devices). The US has the right idea by mandating that all mines detonate after 30 days, even if it adds cost and complexity
Due to Russian invasion of Ukraine some neighbors exited the treaty.
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland exited.
Ukraine has not officially withdrawn from the treaty, but ignored it. Last year they officially announced withdrawal.
Unfortunately anti-personnel mines are highly useful in case of war, especially for defender.
Cost/manufacturing complexity. If you are country struggling to defend your self you don't think problems in 30 years if today problem is does the country exists or not. Might be difficult to put your self to a small defending countries shoes which is absolute running our of resources.
I get it, I don’t think a timer really adds that much cost and complexity. "If he wanted to, he would" scenario.
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First, there should be maps and plans for all mine fields to know the exact position. But this war was insidious, and mines were planted without any method.
> a reliable mechanism for disabling
Note that the bar is pretty high for reliable here. Say 1 in a thousand isn't disarmed or destroyed.
Would you encourage your child to play in an area where ten thousand mines were dropped? A thousand? Five hundred?
Someone who was raised in such an area talks about their experiences elsethread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47194668
There is always the option to use battery (some modern mines use this),for example RAAMS.
The problem is of the enemy know you use only mines that work for max n hours or m days they just wait for n + 1 hours or m + 1 days.
There is a lot more to say about this, but there are probably people way more qualified than be here to explain it.
There are tons of possible options in between n hours and 3 decades
I'm guessing it's the latter, because you have to keep the mine-disabling mechanisms working and powered up through possible adverse weather and environmental conditions for long enough that the conflict has a fair chance of having ended.
That is exactly how modern mines work
I had the good fortune of going to Croatia (as an American) for work about 10 years ago, and I milked that trip hard. What a beautiful country. Dubrovnik, Split, Hvar Island, it was pretty magical.
Conflict zones are the most beautiful places
They make me immediately go “oh I get it”
What a strange and sweeping comment. There’s a conflict going on in Darfur. Does Darfur make you go “oh I get it”?
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I did some off road travelling in Croatia about 15 years ago, thanks GPS driving us into some farming roads.
Only when I got out of it, I realised how stupid idea that was to keep following the GPS, on some country side villages the markings of the war were still visible, with abandoned buildings full of bullet holes.
Naturally having mines still around was a possibility that I completly forgot about.
Bullet hole areas != land mine areas.
Think of it this way: bullet holes are where the fighting took place, while front lines have fluctuated. You don't want to mine an area that your soldiers might want to advance through. Land mines are placed when front lines have stabilised (like they are right now in Ukraine) to prevent the other side from advancing through. You only do that once your side has no intention of advancing further.
As such, land mines were usually properly documented and clearly marked as such after the war with giant skulls and red tapes, usually with some combo of words "PAZI MINE" ("beware, mines"). So while there are still rural areas that are littered with bullet holes, that does not mean those same areas were full of mines. It's also highly unlikely for a mine to be on any road, especially if it looks fairly well-maintained. You can take a road going through the minefield just fine, but you should never be one of those urban explorers that intentionally strays off of the road to look at the ruins on the side of that road.
Might be the case, however one cannot assert 100% guarantee.
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Just this week I talked to a person doing tree pruning/forestry, they were negotiating a job in a rural area in Croatia (wider Karlovac area).
The particular patch of land is still suspected to contain mines, although "in theory" they were all cleared out.
The client didn't want to pay for the minesweeeping tech team to ensure safety, the workers didn't want to wade into a forest that might still be mined.
I suspect this is not an isolated case. It's far from over.
IDK man.
On one hand it might be a real risk.
On the other hand nobody except the timber industry is cutting down a random tree in the middle of the woods. If you're trimming trees on a power line cut or at the edge of a clearing you're working somewhere that has already been gone over with men and machine to make that cut or clearing. So it might be one of those "basically no chance but due to rules... blah blah licensed professionals... blah blah insurance.... blah blah" where even though everyone knows it's fine the guy who has to do the work can't just go do the work without paying someone else to take the liability, etc, etc.
But then again, it's Croatia. They're not rich enough to afford that kind of dysfunction.
Turtles all the way down.
Yeah this was a few trees at the edge of the forest leaning over some houses, needed clearing. "Should be fine", but they're not keen on taking the (personal, physical) risk.
Thing is, you can't narrow it down to some acceptable level of risk. Mines are by definition stealthy, the only way to reduce the risk is to eliminate it by combing over everything, which is extremely hard, tedious, expensive, etc.
Genuine question, why is it very difficult even with our 21st century technology to accurately detect landmines for the purpose of destroying them after the war?
In order to be effective landmines need to be very close to the land surface thus should be easier enough to detect. Researcher in Japan has succesfully detect using low power radar sub-surface bamboo shoots since they are more expensive than bamboo shoots that are already grown over land surface.
For safe and fast detection mechanism close to the ground aerial UAV can be deploy to scan the the suspected land mine area.
Something is missing and don't add up here, perhaps someone can help explain the situations?
Placing landmines is probably among the shittiest and most vile things someone can do.
Knowing that ten, twenty, maybe 50 years after a conflict ends a completely innocent and unrelated person, maybe even not born at the time you did it, might die or get permanently disabled is a sick move.
Place where I grew up is still full of landmines (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and some of the people who placed those mines are government officials today, loved by EU because of their natural resources.
When it's a choice between existence and annihilation it's not so difficult a choice.
For example, Finland has a program that will mine the entire border with Russia in just hours if Russia invades.
My gut feeling says that landmines can be more acceptable when placed in designated areas, for example a strip along the border with proper fencing. And maybe electronics to disable them when they are no longer necessary so they can be safely removed. This is a fundamentally different type of weapon than something that is hidden and anyone can inadvertently step/drive into.
Placing mines on your own border for defense purposes is one thing. Doing an aggression in an independent country, placing mines there is completely different.
And if it is correctly mapped and the map is well managed, then it is not quite as catastrophic as warlords simply burying mines somewhere indiscriminately.
I get what you're saying, but war is evil and sometimes you have to use methods to win that you would otherwise judge from the privileged position of peace.
I can't in good conscience say that the Ukrainians are evil for laying mines well after the invasion started, even though we all know that when the fighting eventually stops it's going to be a disaster to deal with.
Now the Balkans was a different story, where mines were intentionally laid in areas to target civilians. So in the end, like any device designed to kill, it's how and why it is employed that makes the act "evil" or not.
Fair enough, I wasn't super aware of scenarios people mining their own country for defense purposes and I agree that an argument can be made there, as it will not be civilians invading a different country.
As you are aware, in the Balkans this was exclusively done in areas to harm civilians, deep into other countries. I have a plum garden that was near the enemy lines in the 90s, and it was mined. We had to arrange demining squad to go through it, and I still have childhood memories of their tools (mine detectors) being left overnight at our place. Not a memory any person should have.
Agreed.
Also I think that if you live next to a warmongering country you certainly care more about making a military invasion the shittiest and the most vile thing for the aggressor that you can think of and landmines are cheap and effective there.
I think it's a sufficient trade off that landmines self-disable themselves in, say, 5 years or so. If the war continues you'll keep planting more and when it ends you'll just wait a few years and go collect them.
You don't just collect landmines though. The Germans in WW2 had maps which they handed over to the allies but it still killed hundreds of people clearing the landmines. Eventually they decided to use German POWs.
It is absolutely evil. Placing mines instantly puts you in the bad guy category as far as I'm concerned, no matter whom you claim you're "targetting". The Baltics withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty was an absolute disgrace. Indefensible.
The real disgrace is the russian invasion. Can't blame Baltics states for trying to defend themselves.
And don't forget, russians are completely fine with usage of all kind of mines as well as targeting civil critical infrastructure.
Arms control treaties are effective only if they are banning weapons that aren't useful. The problem is that landmines are incredibly useful weapons. What that means is that every country that has signed up to the Ottawa treaty either expects never to get into a major war again, is planning on relying on its allies who haven't signed the treaty to deploy landmines for them, or is planning on ignoring the treaty and using landmines anyways if it gets into another major war again.
In that vein, the Baltics withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty is commendable because they've stopped lying to everybody about what they're going to do come wartime.
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> The Baltics withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty was an absolute disgrace. Indefensible.
It is entirely defensible on account of wanting to reduce risk of being invaded by Russia.
PS: Poland also exited the treaty. I entirely support use of mines on territory of mu country for purposes such as reducing risk of Russian invading Poland again. Though deployment should not be premature.
But I hope that production and stockpiling of enough mines is ongoing.
If you think that is indefensible - are you aware of how WW II went for Baltics, Poland, Belarus? In Poland about 16% of population was murdered, in Belarus about 20% of population was murdered. And Poland and Baltics got decades of occupation on top of that. Belarus still has not managed to get from Russia's boot as of 2026.
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Placing anti-personnel mines is also not very effective in a pitched conflict.
The enemy will lose a few soldiers, but will then clear a marked path. The long term effects far outweigh any short-term advantage.
Have some empathy, do you think landmines are placed for fun?
In conflict between equals, landmines are the only practical way to restrict the mobility of the enemy. That's why 20% of Ukraine is contaminated by mines. If you were official and your choices would be losing and more people dying or placing more landmines that can be cleared over 20 years, what would you do?
They can’t and haven’t
I wonder how long it will take in Ukraine.
Actually at the rate we're going, there will still be active minefield defenses for most of our lifespans.
Poland withdrew from the Ottawa Convention last month, with the aim of being able to lay anti-personnel mines along its eastern border.
Whether it does or not is an open-question, and while I understand it of course, the idea we're increasing the use of mines is a sad day. They're so indiscriminate and will no doubt cause injuries far into the future.
No one is going to build minefields, too populated area, too many wild animals. It's mostly about automatic mining - https://www.hsw.pl/produkty/pojazd-minowania-narzutowego-bao...
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There's no border wall, just a typical bike road next to a small fence. So no, unless Poland is planning to blow up their own civilians, they won't mine their own country lol.
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Placing landmines systematically during peacetime by a stable government-ran military should at least make clearing mines easier, and minefields better marked for locals. So, it's not completely indiscriminate. If it decreases war-related life loss (both direct and indirect), it's net positive
I seen estimates that are much more pessimistic.
https://www.osw.waw.pl/pl/publikacje/komentarze-osw/2023-11-... mentions optimistic estimate of 70 years, and other statistics give estimated cleanup time of 740 years.
And in months since then more mines were placed.
Putin’s war, bro. It’s aaall Putin laying the mines.
I live near part of the WW1 trenches. Most mines, bombs, etc. have been removed for decades now. Still, there are patches where the ground is so polluted with e.g. lead that nothing would grow. We tend to use that ground for companies and industrial things, but no worries, its completely safe for your health, citizen.
I wonder when/if places like vietnam will ever achieve this.
Hell, Australia still has WW2 mines.
France still has WWI unexploded ordnance, and keep-out areas are still being de-mined. This has been going on for a century now. About 900 tons of explosives are removed each year. Completion in 700 years at the current rate.[1]
[1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-red-zone-la...
That is mind blowing, no pun intended.
Does Australia have any landmines? I was under the impression that we had some areas with sea mines which had been swept but still weren't guaranteed safe, and that was it.
There are an estimated one to two million mines in the Korean DMZ. Emplaced by both the South and North Koreans since the 1950s. There is no possibility all those mines are mapped properly. And most of them are not the self-disabling/destroying kind. It will take generations to clear.
Is that actual land mines or generic lost explosives and unexploded bombs?
Cause the latter is pretty common in Europe too, but I'm surprised you have actually minefields which haven't been cleared up in Australia.
I imagine a lot has to do with motivation. Canada has UXO that it doesn't clean up as land is abundant.
This feels like a perfect use case for AI.
If anyone is looking for a good book on this topic, Aftermath: The Remnants of War is a good one: https://a.co/d/05fqBBK5
They apparently also made a documentary about it, but I’ve never watched it.
How do they know? (Serious question)
Because
> all known minefields have been cleared
When clearing minefields, one does not miss mines, because that would be lethal! Every cube inch is carefully mapped. It is extremely hard work.
Is it possible there are mine fields that are not known yet?
Is it wise to issue such a declaration? Its great that they've gotten rid of so many, but shouldn't people still exercise caution on untrod ground?
Huge and great news. Sri Lanka is hoping to get certification later this year too.
I visited Vientiane in Laos a couple years ago. One of the more depressing places to visit there is the COPE Center.
It's a group that provides prosthetics to people who have lost body parts due to landmines left over from the Vietnam War.
Even decades later, there are areas in Laos that have so many unexploded bomblets, it's dangerous to do stuff there, or even build.
Meanwhile.... Poland.
Poland and other countries that just abandoned the mine treaty border russia and belarus. You know, the country that launched and the country that allowed its land to launch largest war in europe since WW2.
Yes. But the what's the point of a convention about weapons that you only observe during peacetime and abandon as soon as war is at your gates?
I mean, I get it, I would be scared shitless too if I had Russia at my border. I'm not saying that Poland is bad for doing this (but I'm not saying it's good either). It's more of a general observation about this kind of treaties: (relatively) easy to get into during peacetime, hard to uphold when shit hits the fan.
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good news!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minefields_in_Croatia
Oof, only 90% survival rate for deminers.
Drones can help these days
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just intime to place new ones for WW3