Russia is likely to be planting banned PFM-1 Petal high-explosive anti-personnel mines along defensive lines in Donbas. These mines can cause significant damage to both the military and the civilian population, according to intelligence from the British Ministry of Defense.
The agency claims that in Donetsk and Kramatorsk, Russia most likely installed the PFM-1 and PFM-1S, which are "controversial weapons of indiscriminate action." A British intelligence report clarifies that the same PFM-1s were used during the Afghan war, when they maimed a large number of children who mistook mines for toys.
“It is very likely that Soviet-era stocks used by Russia deteriorate over time and have now become highly unreliable and unpredictable. This poses a threat to both the local population and mine clearance operations.”
Pro-Russian media have recently begun to write especially often about the presence of “petal” mines in the “DPR”. Thus, on August 7, Izvestia and RIA Novosti reprinted a message from the DPR office at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire. The text stated that 29 people were blown up on the "petals" in the republic. Also, on August 3, RIA Novosti published a video and claimed that the Hurricane MLRS with “petals” allegedly struck the village of Glubokoye in the Kharkiv region. "Petals", according to the agency, were also found in a neighboring village. In addition, the propagandists reported that Russia sent the UN Secretary General data on the “use of the Ukrainian troops” by the “petals”.
Such mines can only be installed using remote mining equipment, for example, the Soviet PKM-1 Wind-M complex, the UMP machine based on the ZIL-131, as well as using the helicopter mining system (VSM-1) and MLRS.
Ukraine signed and ratified the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty back in 2006, and began destroying the arsenal in 2010, but the country has yet to announce that it has destroyed all the mines prohibited by the treaty. Russia has not ratified or acceded to the convention, the country has “petals”, but humanitarian law prohibits deliberate attacks on civilians without a military purpose. Human Rights Watch (HRW) argued that there was no reliable information that Ukrainian government forces allegedly used anti-personnel mines, which Russia accuses them of.
