The Biden administration will allow Ukraine to use American-supplied anti-personnel land mines to help fight off Russian forces, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has said.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Laos, Mr Austin said the shift in policy follows changing tactics by the Russians.
He said Russian ground troops are leading the movement on the battlefield, rather than forces more protected in armoured carriers, so Ukraine has “a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians”.
Mr Austin added: “The land mines that we would look to provide them would be land mines that are not persistent, you know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it, you know, far more, safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.”
Russia’s bigger army is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backwards in the eastern Donetsk region.
Anti-personnel land mines have long been criticised by charities and activists because they present a lingering threat to civilians.
Non-persistent land mines generally require batteries, so over time they become unable to detonate, making them safer for innocent civilians than those that remain deadly for years.
Mr Austin noted that Ukraine is currently manufacturing its own anti-personnel land mines.
He also tried to allay concerns about the new mines the US is giving Kyiv, saying they are not persistent, meaning troops can control when they would self-detonate.
“That makes it far more safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own,” Mr Austin said.
The US already provides Ukraine with anti-tank land mines. Russia has routinely used land mines in the war, but those do not become inert over time.
The war, which reached its 1,000-day milestone on Tuesday, has taken on a growing international dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the battlefield — a development that US officials said prompted Mr Biden’s policy shift on allowing Ukraine to fire longer-range US missiles into Russia and that angered the Kremlin.
Britain had been quietly pressing the US to ease restrictions on how Western-supplied missiles are used.
And on Wednesday, unconfirmed news reports said Ukraine had fired British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles at Russia for the first time. British and Ukrainian officials did not confirm the reports.
Officials with France’s military and president’s office, meanwhile, declined to say whether Ukraine is using French long-range SCALP missiles to strike targets in Russia, citing France’s military secrecy policy. But French President Emmanuel Macron has been advocating for such a step for months.
Earlier, the American diplomatic mission in Kyiv said it had received a warning of a potentially significant Russian air attack on the capital and was staying shut for the day. It anticipated a quick return to regular operations.
The Spanish, Italian and Greek embassies also shut to the public for the day, but the UK government and France said that their embassies remained open.
The precautionary closure came after Russian officials promised a response to US President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets on Russian soil with US-made missiles – a move that angered the Kremlin.
Mr Austin’s announcement is likely to further vex Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin subsequently lowered the threshold for using his nuclear arsenal, with the new doctrine announced on Tuesday permitting a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.
That could potentially include Ukrainian attacks backed by the US.
Western leaders dismissed the Russian move as an attempt to deter Ukraine’s allies from providing further support to Kyiv, but the escalating tension weighed on stock markets after Ukraine used American-made ATACMS longer-range missiles for the first time to strike a target inside Russia.
Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia been stockpiling powerful long-range missiles, possibly in an upcoming effort to crush the Ukrainian power grid as winter settles in.
Military analysts say the US decision on the range over which American-made missiles can be used is not expected to be a game-changer in the war, but it could help weaken the Russian war effort, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank.
Later on Wednesday it was announced the Pentagon will send Ukraine at least 275 million dollars (£217 million) in new weapons, including an undisclosed number of antipersonnel land mines, as the Biden administration rushes to do as much as it can to help Kyiv fight back against Russia before Donald Trump takes office.
The latest tranche of weapons comes as worries grow about an escalation in the conflict, with both sides pushing to gain any advantage they can exploit if Mr Trump demands a quick end to the war — as he has vowed to do.
“We will continue to provide Ukraine the support it needs to succeed on the battlefield and prevail in its defence against Russia’s aggression,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
