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WASHINGTON – The Pentagon’s latest weapons package for Ukraine includes relics from the Cold War to aid Russia’s advance and limit its ability to maneuver during an expected spring offensive.
The weapon, the M21 anti-tank land mine, has been in use by the Department of Defense since at least the early 1960s. An unknown number will be sent to Ukraine as part of a $325 million aid package from the US military stockpile announced this week, the 36th transfer of lethal materiel to Kyiv since August 2021.
The M21 mine – a large metal weapon that is usually buried and detonates when a vehicle drives by – contains a special warhead built to penetrate inches of armor plating.
“Anti-tank landmines are an important defensive capability against Russian tanks and armored vehicles, helping Ukrainian forces repel Russian attacks and shaping the battlefield to Ukraine’s advantage,” said Major Charlie Dietz, a Pentagon spokesman, in a statement on Friday.
The decision to deploy the M21 appears to be cautious among various areas of concern, given the controversy that has accompanied the use of landmines for decades.
One problem is legality. As an anti-tank weapon, the M21 is not prohibited by the 1997 Ottawa Convention – an international treaty signed by 133 countries that prohibits the storage and use of anti-personnel mines, which are usually smaller and kill or maim pedestrians. those people.
By comparison, anti-tank mines usually require several hundred pounds or more of pressure to detonate, such as from a truck or tank. Unlike some American-made anti-tank mine models, the M21 could not be fitted with secondary fuzes that allowed the booby-trap device to be added, which would also not have violated certain provisions of the treaty.
Ukraine is a signatory to the Ottawa Convention, while the United States and Russia are not. However, the Biden administration has said it will use anti-personnel mines only for the defense of South Korea.
Other issues include post-conflict concerns: whether weapons can be easily found with metal detectors and ground-penetrating radars, and how long they take to die after being planted.
Although the US military developed anti-tank landmines during the Cold War, they were usually made of plastic to make them difficult to detect, the M21 is metal and will be easier to find when mine clearance efforts begin.
A final concern, however, remains unaddressed: Like mines of its era, the M21 lacks a self-destruct feature. So the Ukrainian forces will probably be expected to carefully map where the mines are for later cleaning operations.
According to a 2002 report from the General Accounting Office, now known as the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon had more than 178,000 M21 mines in stock at the time. The report says the last time the US military used anti-tank mines was during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, though it wasn’t the M21.
The M21 is considered a “heavy mine” measuring approximately nine inches in diameter and eight inches high, and weighing 17 and a half pounds. When triggered by a downward force of nearly 300 mina, the mine explodes, throwing a curved steel plate up into the body of the targeted vehicle, wheels or tracks.
The US Army technical manual notes that the M21 can penetrate three inches of armor plate at a distance of 21 inches.
The M21 is the second type of anti-tank land mine that the United States has provided to Kyiv.
In September, the Pentagon announced it would send 1,000 155-millimeter cannons called RAAMS, for Remote Anti-Armor Mine Systems, which are fired from howitzers and create temporary minefields between enemy forces.
The shell opened in the air and released nine small puck-like munitions that fell unguided to the ground, each containing a high explosive charge.
Each small mine contains a magnetic sensor that causes it to detonate when a vehicle approaches. There are two versions: one to self-destruct after four hours, the other after 48 hours.
The latest available data shows that the Pentagon has sent 14,000 shells to Ukraine as of April 4.
The Ukrainian army has long used Soviet-era TM-62 anti-tank mines during its war with Russia, as did the Russian invaders. Whether the provision of M21s signals that Ukraine’s stock of TM-62s is low, or that the M21 is necessary for other reasons, is not clear.
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