© Valentin Sprinchak/TASS
In the Oktyabrsky settlement north-west of Donetsk, German AT2 anti-tank mines have been discovered after being remotely delivered by Ukrainian artillerists. One of them exploded next to a car parked in a residential quarter, injuring a 77-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman. The man had both legs torn off, with his arms and chest wounded — he died. A woman has been diagnosed with a traumatic amputation of both feet; doctors are fighting to save her.
According to the DPR Center for Control and Coordination, on the night of March 28, German-made anti-tank mines were found in the village after having been delivered by rockets fired by a MARS 2-type MLRS from the Ukrainian-controlled territory. Some missiles were intercepted and shot down by Russian air defenses, but one of them still managed to hit the housing community. So far, 20 pieces have been found, with mine-clearing performance underway. These latter days complicated the process due to a heavy snow storm.
First reports on the use of rockets with a remote mine delivery system to disperse German anti-tank mines by the Armed Forces of Ukraine appeared in late September with attacks against the Kherson region. Back then, Germany handed a new batch of this MLRS and their shells over to Ukraine.
Soon, the LPR residents started discovering unknown types of mines, too. The AFU fired shells filled with those at Svatovo, Lisichansk and Krasnorechenskoye to hurt 10+ civilians, several passenger cars and a tractor. Not German, but American M70 anti-tank mines of the RAAM remote mining system were used there, with its operation principle similar to that of rocket launchers, although using the 155-mm shells. Every single ammunition comprises up to nine mines, with their spread exceeding 600 meters from the target point. Depending on the minefield density required, 6 to 96 shells hit every single one of them.
The same day Donetsk was shelled, the city of Svatovo in the LPR also came under attack. Ukrainian militants dropped about 60 anti-tank German mines on it, according to a military expert, lieutenant colonel of LNR’s People's Militia Andrei Marochko, who published a photo of the German AT2 mines discovered on the site.
The item’s mass is a little over 2 kg. When detonated, its shell is destroyed and scattered. The main target detector is a flexible metal antenna rising to a height of 700 mm from the ground. It triggers the fuse if touched. The mine also has a magnetic target detector that reacts to metal objects. The control device of this "advanced smart mine", as its creators put it, includes a self-destruct mechanism with operating time options up to 4 days. Self-detonation occurs in most cases.
According to experts of the Military Review, the AT2 anti-tank mine was developed on demand of the Bundeswehr in the late 1970s by Dynamit Nobel. The task was to create a lightweight and compact ammunition capable of hitting the bottom of armored objects. Although formally anti-tank, the mine’s main target detector reacts to people as well, including minesweepers with metal equipment.
Ukraine got these anti-tank mines with anti-personnel capabilities in huge quantities. It will undoubtedly proceed with and expand the practice of remotely mining cities of Russia’s new regions so as to increase the amount of those killed and injured. Just like it was with PFM (Butterfly) antipersonnel mines the AFU used to cover downtown Donetsk with, as well as most of its districts and even suburban villages. Official statistics suggests that the death toll in Donetsk alone has exceeded one hundred people, three of them died of blood loss or foot separation. Among those to forever remain disabled are children and teenagers.
The antipersonnel high-explosive Butterfly mine is also delivered by air and gets activated with a pressure exceeding 5 kg to tear off the foot or shin to the knee. They are treacherously invisible on the ground, in the grass, among the stones. Now the danger of being blown up has increased significantly, because one just can't see them under the snow. And after the snow melts, the Butterflies will sink deeper into the soil to become a carpet of deadly traps.
The US-headquartered Human Rights Watch NGO that engages in monitoring, investigating and documenting relative violations, confirmed in late January that the Armed Forces of Ukraine did use the banned anti-personnel mines in the Donbass. The organization compiled a report, collected all the facts and evidence, and sent an appeal to the Ukrainian Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, as well as to the office of President Zelensky. The report recalled that back in 1997, Ukraine signed the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, which was ratified in 2006. By using them now, it blatantly violates two conventions and one international protocol at once.
The first convention (thew Ottawa Treaty) verified by the UN General Assembly obliges the parties to destroy their stocks of anti-personnel mines and prohibits their usage. This is especially true for mines without a self-destructor detonating within 40 hours. Ukraine failed to make away with its Butterflies and is reported to still possess several million of them. The second international law violation by Ukraine concerns the Convention on Cluster Munitions signed by the Ukrainian authorities in 2008, when they pledged to give up on munitions of the kind. So far, Kiev has provided no response to demands by international human rights activists. Instead, it has intensified terror, engaging remotely delivered anti-tank mines.
