- Category
- Latest news
Five NATO Countries Prepare Massive Landmine Defenses to Deter Russia
Five NATO members—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland—have moved to exit the 1997 Ottawa Convention, with formal notifications to the United Nations due this month; the withdrawals will allow these states to manufacture, stockpile and deploy anti-personnel mines from the end of 2025, as was reported by The Telegraph on June 24.
Signed in 1997 and effective from 1999, the Ottawa Convention had 165 state parties by March 2025 yet excluded key military powers, including the United States, China, India, Pakistan and Russia. Under its terms, signatories agreed to cease production, stockpiling, transfer and use of anti-personnel mines and to destroy existing stockpiles within four years.
Financial Times analysis highlighted that Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are poised to join Finland’s planned withdrawal, citing “clear security arguments” that blur the line between defense and civilian risk.
Spanning every NATO frontier with Russia and Belarus—from Finland’s 1,340 km Russo-Finnish boundary to Poland’s eastern borders—the five nations now embrace landmines as part of their deterrence posture. Finland has specifically noted that mines would help defend its rugged, forested terrain in the event of an incursion.
Lithuania Defense Minister Dovile Šakalienė underscored the necessity: “Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, its systematic violations of international law, and its military provocations on our borders … pose an existential threat.” Lithuania plans to allocate about $929 million to produce both anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, part of a broader strategy to harden its defences until allies can respond.
Campaigners across Europe have sounded the alarm as countries once bound by the mine-ban treaty signal their intention to exit. A landmark report by The Guardian on April 27 detailed how public safety and environmental groups fear a resurgence of mine warfare, undermining decades of humanitarian progress.
Earlier, two international volunteers, including British humanitarian and mine clearance specialist Chris Garrett, were killed near Izium, Kharkiv region, when an explosive device detonated.
