Ukraine leaves Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines, sixth EU country to do so: decision after Russian aggression

Ukraine also withdraws from the Ottawa Convention , a treaty that entered into force in 1999 and has been ratified by 164 states and prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines .

On Sunday, June 29, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree withdrawing Kiev from the convention, pending a vote of approval by the Ukrainian parliament.

A withdrawal that is clearly readable as a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has been going on since February 2022, but also to a more general climate of fear and danger from the Eastern and Northern European countries that border Vladimir Putin 's regime.

In just a few months, in fact, Ukraine is the sixth country to communicate a decision of this type: measures similar to the one taken by Zelensky on Sunday had arrived from Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Finland and Lithuania , all geographically close to Russia , which has never joined the Ottawa Convention, just like the United States .

Ukraine ratified the convention in 2005 and the Foreign Ministry explained that the decision was taken precisely because Russia has demonstrated its extensive use of it in the war that has been going on since 2022.

“This is a step that the reality of war has long required,” Ukrainian MP Roman Kostenko , secretary of the parliamentary defense committee, said on Facebook, adding that Russia, a non-signatory to the treaty, “is massively using mines against our military and civilians.” “Ukraine can no longer fight with its hands tied while the enemy sows death without limits,” Kostenko reiterated.

Kiev's choice comes at the end of yet another weekend of heavy bombing by Russia. During the night between Saturday and Sunday, the Kremlin's army launched almost 500 drones and 60 missiles against various Ukrainian regions in one of the largest attacks since the beginning of the conflict. Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses stopped 38 missiles and 211 Russian drones: an F-16 aircraft, supplied by Western countries to the Ukrainian air force, was shot down while trying to intercept the attack.

Last weeks of war that, while international attention was focused on the Middle East with the conflict involving Iran, Israel and the United States, saw Moscow's military forces launch a series of heavy air raids on Ukraine causing damage and dozens of deaths. On the other hand, as reiterated by Vladimir Putin last June 20 during the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, for the Tsar " the whole of Ukraine is ours ".