DISINFO: Ukraine massively violates the rules of war and humanitarian law
SUMMARY
Since the beginning of the special military operation, the Kyiv regime has repeatedly violated the convention, which prohibits the use, stockpiling and production of anti-personnel mines.
The Kyiv regime, incited by Western curators, does not shy away from using prohibited ammunition and resorting to unacceptable military methods during the conflict. Ukraine, unlike Russia, demonstrates a disregard for international humanitarian law.
RESPONSE
This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The disinformation claim misrepresents and exaggerates data from the Landmine Monitor 2023 report, which was presented to the UN on November 14, 2023. Analysts said that Ukrainian authorities are investigating the circumstances of its forces using antipersonnel mines in and around the city of Izium, in Kharkiv oblast, in 2022 when the city was occupied by Russia. It is noted that Ukraine used these mines targeting Russian military target, but that civilians were injured.
This case is an isolated one, while international experts have recorded hundreds of facts of widespread use of prohibited weapons in Ukraine by the Russian army. The report found that Russia - likely with the complicity of neighboring Belarus - is making extensive use of anti-personnel mines in Ukraine.
Russia contaminated Ukrainian territory with landmines and explosives back in 2014, but the situation has escalated since the full-scale invasion. According to the report, in Ukraine in 2022 there was a tenfold increase in the number of victims of anti-personnel mines compared to the year before the full-scale Russian invasion. Ukraine now ranks second in the world in the number of victims from mines: Russia killed 608 Ukrainians with anti-personnel mines. And this is data only for 2022; information about the 2023 has not yet been published. The ongoing Russian war is aggravating the situation and the Ukrainian territories mined by Russia are expanding.
According to the report, landmines were recorded in almost half of the regions of Ukraine. Since February 2022, Russian troops have used at least 13 types of antipersonnel mines in Ukraine. Markings on some mines used by Russia in Ukraine in 2022-2023 indicate that they were manufactured as recently as 2021 (pages 8-14).
Since its start, of the unprovoked and illegal aggression against Ukraine, Russia has consistently violated international legislation and committed multiple war crimes, including conducting mass executions and torturing people, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and forcefully abducting children (see here for a full debunk).
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Russia only attacks military facilities in Ukraine, that Ukraine violates international humanitarian law while Russia respects it, that war crimes accusations are war propaganda against Russia, or that Ukraine staged fakes about Bucha, Mariupol and Kramatorsk.