By Galina Korol | 2025-07-08

For years, Ukraine fought a war with one hand tied behind its back. Now, it is cutting the rope.

Kyiv is moving to abandon the Ottawa Convention banning antipersonnel mines, a treaty Russia never signed. Since 2014, Russia has exploited Ukraine's compliance with the treaty by deploying the weapons across Ukrainian territory against troops and civilians.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree June 29 signaling the shift. Until now, Ukraine remained bound by obligations its adversary ignored.

The move ends a dangerous imbalance, said Roman Kostenko, secretary of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence.

"We cannot remain tied down in an environment where the enemy has no restrictions," he wrote on Facebook.

The matter now rests with the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, which must provide the legal framework to restore the country's ability to defend its territory, said Kostenko.

Timely, and even belated

Reintroducing antipersonnel mines is not a rash move, Ukrainian officials say, but a calculated response to the brutality of Russia's invasion.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Poland -- nations bordering Russia -- have withdrawn from the Ottawa Convention in recent years.

"There's a general understanding that if you don't use antipersonnel mines, you’re weakening your defense capability," Ihor Chalenko, director of Ukraine's Center for Analysis and Strategies, told Kontur.

He called Ukraine's decision "not so much timely but actually belated," arguing the law must now serve the people's security.

The price of obligations

The Ottawa Convention, adopted in 1997, bans the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of antipersonnel mines. It aims to shield civilians from the long-term harm of these weapons.

Ukraine ratified the treaty in 2005, during a period of optimism about European peace and stability.

At the time, Ukraine held the world's fifth-largest arsenal of antipersonnel mines, said Chalenko. Under the treaty, Ukraine committed to destroying its stockpiles, a task it pursued with significant effort.

By May 2020, Ukraine had eliminated more than 3 million mines, according to then-Deputy Defense Minister Anatolii Petrenko.

"We disarmed ourselves to become a victim to the enemy," Chalenko said.

The disarmament had lasting consequences, Ihor Petrenko, a political analyst and professor at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, said.

"Just think about it: the aggressor country [Russia] that has been waging a war against us since 2014 is using mines on a mass scale, but Ukraine isn't because we're obligated to abide by the convention. As a result, we're fighting with one arm tied behind our back," Petrenko told Kontur.

The situation worsened in 2022, as Russian forces saturated Ukrainian positions with mines and launched infantry attacks, sometimes involving North Korean troops, he said.

Withdrawing from the treaty is not about prolonging the war but about restoring Ukraine's ability to defend itself, he said.

"We aren't defying international law," he said, "but the right to self-defense is the foundation of every state."

Killing of international law

"Many are logically wondering why Ukraine didn't do this sooner," Petrenko said.

Kyiv initially relied on diplomacy, hoping international support and advanced weapons would make such measures unnecessary, he said.

But Russia's tactics proved otherwise. "There are no technologies that can substitute for antipersonnel mines against Russia's mass 'meat grinder assaults,'" said Petrenko.

With threats mounting, he added, "Survival is also a right, and we're exercising it."

"If there is no Ukraine, there won't be rights either."

Some legal scholars acknowledge the move could draw criticism. Under Article 20, the Ottawa Convention prohibits withdrawal from itself during wartime. But the treaty lacks enforcement mechanisms, Evhen Tsybulenko, an international law professor in Tallinn, Estonia, told Kontur, adding it "doesn't stipulate any serious responsibility for violating it."

Russia's war has already "killed" the Ottawa Convention and may also undermine the 2008 ban on cluster munitions, another treaty Moscow never signed, Tsybulenko said.

Despite the international prohibition, Russia continues to use cluster munitions on the front lines and in large-scale attacks on Ukrainian cities.

This war, Tsybulenko argued, is eroding global legal norms.

"In the past, any large war -- and first and foremost the world wars -- would spur the development of international humanitarian law. But the war Russia unleashed in Ukraine has become the first war in modern history where the opposite is happening: it is causing the decline of international humanitarian law," he said.