Eva Bartlett: American mines sent to Ukraine will kill and maim civilians. That’s exactly what the West wants

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By Eva Bartlett, Website, 11/28/24

[Originally published] November 27, 2024, RT.com

-Eva Karene Bartlett

A former British army general, now the CEO of the largest Western NGO focused on demining efforts, has decided it is a good idea for the United States to send deadly anti-personnel mines to Ukraine (which will almost certainly use them against Russian civilians). This is absolutely insane logic.

The US government recently confirmed rumors that it intends to send such land mines to Ukraine. So-called “non-persistent” mines. More on these later.

On November 21, James Cowan, CEO of landmine clearance charity the HALO Trust, published an article in the London Standard titled ‘Don’t blame the US decision to supply anti-personnel mines to Ukraine’, in which he wrote that “the deployment of landmines is a grim necessity.”

Just one day prior, HALO issued a press release regarding an upcoming “critical international landmine ban meeting that will see some 164 states gather in Cambodia.” In the press release, Cowan said: “It is appalling that so many children in conflict and post-conflict zones around the world continue to be maimed or killed by indiscriminate weapons that lay waiting in the ground, often for decades.”

“This report must surely be a reminder of the need for states to hold firm on achieving the aims of the Landmine Ban Treaty.”

Are we seriously meant to believe Cowan thinks Ukraine will not use the mines against civilians, including children? Because there are already countless cases of Ukraine using a variety of mines in Donbass, including dropping them onto civilian areas in Donbass cities. 

On November 2, TASS reported that “Ukrainian troops mined everything they could while fleeing Selidovo in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), including private homes and apartment buildings,” noting that demining the city may take several months.

In March 2022, I went to Volnovakha (about halfway between Donetsk and Mariupol). The chief physician of the main hospital there said definitively that the Ukrainian army had occupied the hospital and before leaving they mined the entrance to the intensive care unit. 

In June 2022, in Mariupol I saw Russian sappers demonstrate how they cleared buildings of mines left as booby traps by Ukrainian forces to maim or kill whoever first entered, be they military or civilian. This was a tactic that terrorists in Syria also used, as I heard in the town of Madaya after it was liberated in 2017, as well as when visiting the old city of Homs shortly after it was liberated in 2014.

The Ukrainian army has already used a variety of mines to deliberately kill or maim civilians. So to imagine that the next batch of mines shipped to Ukraine won’t be used against civilians is either hypocritical, delusional, or just plain stupid.

War correspondent Andrey Rudenko on November 20 wrote of how in addition to Ukraine’s bombing of Donbass civilians for the eight years before Russia began its special military operation, they were constantly in danger from mines: “Mined roadsides, fields, forests, cemetery areas. For the entire eight years, citizens were asked not to visit such areas, and sappers regularly demined agricultural lands, buildings and residential areas.”

He noted that “the use of anti-personnel mines on the combat line is out of the question, because the Ukrainian Armed Forces would then expose themselves to attack” since on the front line, many areas “often change hands during fighting.”

The US knows this, yet it is sending more landmines to Ukraine. 

Petal mines continue to maim civilians

As one of the more insidious uses of mines, Ukraine has fired rockets containing hundreds of “petal” (PFM-1) mines onto heavily populated areas of Donbass cities. In 2022 they were fired onto central Donetsk. I saw them the next morning, scattered in the streets and parks of Donetsk, and later in nearby Makeevka.

I’ve written extensively about these internationally prohibited mines. They are tiny, but powerful, and extremely difficult to see if not actively looking for them. Children and the elderly suffer the most, generally not recognizing them as a severe danger, but ordinary citizens thinking their region is clear of the mines have fallen victim as well.

As I wrote in 2022, according to Konstantin Zhukov, chief medical officer of Donetsk Ambulance Service, a weight of just 2 kg is enough to activate one of the mines. Sometimes, however, they explode spontaneously. An unspoken tragedy on top of the already tragic targeting of civilians is that dogs, cats, birds and other animals are also victims of these dirty mines. 

As of now, 169 civilians have been wounded by the nasty little mines, three of whom died of their injuries. Those who don’t die usually have a foot or hand blasted off, as was the case of (then) 14-year-old Nikita, who I met in late 2022. The teen, who formerly did breakdancing and Mixed Martial Arts, lost his foot after stepping on a petal mine in a playground in Western Donetsk. 

A point that bears repeating: Ukraine is party to and in violation of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (or Ottawa Treaty), which it signed in 1999.

Defending the indefensible

In his explanation on why he supports sending landmines to Ukraine (to be used against Russian civilians), Cowan waffles on about principles of the laws of war, including:

1) “Distinction” between combatants and civilians: In other words, trying to convince readers that Ukraine would not use these against civilians. Recall we heard this dishonest argument last year when the US sent cluster munitions to Ukraine, after which, to nobody’s surprise, there were new reports of Ukraine firing cluster munitions onto Donbass civilians.

The disingenuous last part to his first point is that the mines the US would send are “non-persistent” that “can be deactivated” to mitigate harm to civilians. That doesn’t help civilians who come across them before they are “deactivated,” does it?

2) “Proportionality,” minimal collateral damage, “placement away from populated areas.” Well, given the evidence outlined above, it is clear that it was never a question of “collateral damage” but Ukraine directly inflicting death and injuries on the civilian population of Donbass. Ukrainian forces have already laid and drone-dropped so many mines in populated areas that the notion that they would suddenly stop doing so is nonsensical.

3) “Humanity,” respecting fundamental rights of all people… no comment, see above. 

4) “Military Necessity.” I’m no military expert, but I highly doubt Cowan and the US think sending Kiev more landmines will be the game changer enabling Ukraine to triumph over Russia. The reality is they know these dirty mines will not help Ukraine “win” but will certainly kill and maim more Russian civilians. And they’re not only fine with that, they want that. 

The Mines Advisory Group released a condemnation of the decision to send Ukraine anti-personnel mines, noting:

“While the types of AP mines which would be used in Ukraine are described as non-persistent, that does not mean they are harmless. All landmines are indiscriminate and have the potential to cause civilian harm.”

Decision-makers in the West should be made to see first-hand the bloody consequences of their actions. This is yet another example of the US and its allies prolonging civilian suffering while pretending to try to “save Ukraine” from a conflict created by NATO in the first place.

My Related:

-The West is silent as Ukraine targets civilians in Donetsk using banned ‘Petal’ mines, Aug 7, 2022, RT.com (In Gaza)

-In Just Under Three Weeks, Ukrainian-Fired Prohibited “Petal” Mines Maim At Least 44 Civilians, Kill 2, in Donetsk Region, August 23, 2022, Covert Action Magazine (In Gaza)

-Ukraine turns Donetsk into a minefield using banned ‘Petal’ mines (2022) (VIDEO)

-Donetsk Emergency Services & Sappers Clear Residential Areas of Ukraine’s Mines (2022) (VIDEO)

-Ukrainian Terrorism: Firing Munitions Containing Petal Mines On Donbass Orphanage, Another War Crime (2022) (VIDEO)

-14 Year Old Is One of 169 Donbass Civilians Maimed By Petal Mines Fired By Ukraine (2022) (VIDEO)

-Volnovakha Physician: Ukrainian forces occupied the hospital, mined the ICU entrance (2022) (VIDEO)

-Here’s why Human Rights Watch deliberately only scratched the surface in exploring Ukraine’s use of banned ‘petal’ mines, March 28, 2023, RT.com (In Gaza)

-US cluster munitions will bring more pain and death to Donbass civilians, and Washington doesn’t care, August 1, 2023, RT.com (In Gaza)

–What I’ve seen of Ukraine’s war crimes against civilians in the Donbass over the years

–The Donbass: My Articles, Videos & Interviews From/On the Donetsk & Lugansk People’s Republics (2019-present)

Gilbert Doctorow: St Petersburg Travel Notes: installment two

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By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 10/31/24

During the period of the Wagner Group insurrection in the spring of 2023, the biography of the mercenary group’s founder and principal owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was spread far and wide. The fact that he had once served meals to Vladimir Putin prompted sniggering among our mainstream commentators. Just imagine that such a person could rise to the power, influence and wealth of Prigozhin! This was proof positive of the endemic corruption and distorted values of the ‘Putin regime,’ they opined.

However, my point in writing today’s installment is to demonstrate that upward mobility of those with great talent and imagination has long been and remains a competitive advantage of Russia. That was so under Peter the Great in the first quarter of the 18th century, it was certainly true in much of the Soviet period until the 1980s. And it revived very nicely in the ‘Roaring 90s’ when the hero of this piece, Sergei Gutzeit, restaurateur, vineyard owner, restorer of landmark buildings at his own expense, founder and chief benefactor of a lyҫėe for aspiring talents from the lower classes began his steep rise up the success ladder in the circle of another rising star, Vladimir Putin.

All of these issues came to mind this afternoon when my wife and I took lunch in Gutzeit’s first and still best earning restaurant Podvorye located in the Petersburg suburb of Pavlovsk where he has kept his primary residence and focus of his charitable works for decades.

Pavlovsk is named for the Emperor Pavel (Paul I), son of Catherine the Great and father of Emperor Alexander I, best known as the conqueror of Napoleon. Paul’s elegant and modestly sized palace is a ‘must see’ tourist destination for both foreign and domestic visitors to Northwest Russia, alongside the much larger and more demanding Summer Palace of Catherine in the town of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo), 5 km away.

However, the success of Gutzeit’s restaurant opposite the palace park had little to do with location, location, location. Gutzeit opened the Podvorye in 1994 on an unpromising plot of land that the grudging city authorities offered him. It is wedged between the train tracks on one side and a busy local highway on the other. It was his unique architectural solution and his talents in hospitality services that won him a loyal clientele from among the top business and political circles of Petersburg after a very few years.

As for architecture, the Podvorye restaurant and the ensemble of outbuildings adjacent to it are made from immense stripped logs in a style that resembles the stage settings for 17th century or still earlier Russia as shown in Rimsky Korsakov operas in the Mariinsky Theater. The basic menu was built entirely around traditional hearty Russian cuisine that is very well turned out, in copious portions and priced very fairly. And on weekends it was the rule to regale diners with rounds of Russian folk songs by musicians who invited the children especially to join in.

Gutzeit’s fortune was assured in October 2000 when Vladimir Putin decided to celebrate his first birthday as president in…the Podvorye. The specially prepared meal for the presidential party remains on page one of the printed menu and is currently priced at 55 euros in ruble equivalency. In typical Russian fashion, the meal opens with a shock and awe array of eight different meat, fish, salted vegetable, marinated forest mushroom and other appetizers which invite rounds of vodka shot glasses, then moves on to a fish or meat soup followed by the mains of fried fish or meat. Fasting for a day ahead of such a meal is a good idea.

On the other hand, for normal dining, the out of pocket cost is much lower. By way of example, I mention that our favorite dish is half a roast duck served with stewed cabbage and a baked pear with lingonberry filling. One portion is more than sufficient to serve two and today costs the equivalent of 12 euros. Back in the 1990s, when Russian farming was reeling from the shock therapy administered at the advice of Western advisers, Gutzeit had to import his ducks frozen from France to be satisfied with quality and uniform portions. Then when relations with France soured, he shifted to frozen ducks from Hungary. Now chef assures me that they arrive fresh from farms in Rostov (Russia) and I assure you that the quality is superb.

But, to resume my story of Gutzeit’s rise: once word of the President’s visit got around, the Podvorye was filled daily to capacity. Back in the 1990s and early in the new century, the diners were predominantly foreigners whose reservations were made for them by the premiere hotels in St Petersburg where they were lodged. I recall how in about 2004 my wife and I spotted former British prime minister John Major at another table.

Those were the glory days when Gutzeit made a fortune that he immediately invested in other commercial ventures and also in charitable works, the first of which, was a free of charge soup kitchen for the poor run daily from a large, specially built canteen adjacent to the restaurant.

Nowadays the clientele is almost exclusively middle class Russians from near and far. They arrive as couples, as families with kids, and as groups of friends.

Aside from opening other restaurants in the region, Gutzeit created the ‘Russian Village’ in Upper Mandrogi, a Russian equivalent to America’s Williamsburg on a riverbank site jointly agreed with tour operators of cruises in the rivers and canals running north from Lake Ladoga that are very popular in the summer season. This venture provided work opportunities to artisans in traditional decorative handicrafts.

With the proceeds of his businesses, with his own money Gutzeit undertook the restoration of dilapidated buildings from the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries in the Pavlovsk area. In one of these complexes he opened what I would call his most ambitious and far-sighted project which was inspired by the lyҫėe within the Catherine Palace which Alexander I created initially with a view to educate his younger brothers together with a small group of talented students from outside the royal entourage. Today it is best known as the school where the young Pushkin studied. Gutzeit’s vision was to help create a new patriotic but broadly educated and widely traveled elite to help guide the country’s future.

The school was named for Russia’s revered Foreign Minister in the second half of the 19th century, A.M. Gorchakov. Gutzeit directly oversaw the selection of the 18 candidates for the first class and following classes from among children of low income intelligentsia families. He oversaw the program of travel abroad in the West and domestically around Russia that the students were given gratis. The school is still going strong and I expect to hear more about its graduates when I meet with Gutzeit at the start of next week.

In reviving the tradition of what was called in Pushkin’s time the Tsarskoye Selo lyҫėe, Gutzeit was a good 20 years ahead of the Putin government. It is only now that a project to revive that school in the original Catherine Palace complex is being realized.

Meanwhile, Gutzeit never abandoned the love for fresh produce that directed him to cooking and restaurant ownership. Originally born and educated in Odessa (Ukraine), Gutzeit got his start in business in the food markets of the north where he traded in vegetables. The latter partly explains his decision early in the new millennium to buy a farming estate in the Crimea. His main crop there is grapes for wine, and he began well before it became popular for Russian arbiters of taste like Dmitry Kiselyov, director of all Russian state television news, to become a vineyard owner in Crimea. Gutzeit indulges in his gentleman farmer avocation in the south from late spring to autumn.

His most recent acquisition, agricultural land near the regional center Gatchina, brings together various interests. The location has its own logic: Paul 1 had his earliest palace in precisely Gatchina. On this farm, Gutzeit is now growing most of the fresh vegetables, herbs, fowl and dairy products that will be featured in Podvorye. With this latest accent on cooking mainly what you get from your surroundings and can personally control, Gutzeit’s restaurant is sure to vie for a star in the Michelin guide if and when sanctions are lifted.

That, in a nutshell, is my Exhibit Number 1 of a successful and wealthy benefactor of his society with outstanding vision who began, like Prigozhin, as ‘a waiter to Putin.’ When you care to scratch the surface, this country has a great many surprises that help you to better understand why it is now the fourth biggest economy in the world as measured by Purchasing Power Equivalency and likely has the number one army in the world.

Kyiv Post: Over 100K Ukrainians Return to Russian-Occupied Donbas as Economic Hardship Grows

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By Olena Hrazhdan, Kyiv Post, 11/23/24

130,000 Ukrainians have returned to their homes in the Russian-occupied Donbas territories in the last year due to the difficulties they faced living as internally displaced people since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

The returnees all travel through Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow to make the trip, Mariupol mayor advisor Petr Andriushchenko told Kyiv Post. Russia closed the last land border crossing between the Sumy region in Ukraine and the Kursk region in Russia when Kyiv launched its counteroffensive into the area over the summer.

Andrushchenko said he obtained the data from Russian officials overseeing the Sheremetyevo checkpoint, showing that the root cause for their return is finances.

“This wave last year began after Ukraine’s government canceled the social wage of Hr.2,000 ($48) for internally displaced Ukrainians. But the main reason is that they don’t have a place to live,” Andriushchenko said.

The average salary of a Ukrainian worker who fled Donbas in 2022 does not exceed the price of a monthly apartment rental in most of Ukraine, he added. This also keeps Ukraine’s most popular mortgage program, yeOselya, out of reach for IDPs, he added. Internally displaced Ukrainians only comprise 2% of the program’s 13,000 borrowers.

“[The program] fits refugees from Kyiv, Bucha, Hostomel but people from Mariupol, Berdyansk, Volnovakha, Tokmak, and Melitopol cannot afford it.”

Cities like Kyiv have more jobs, which is why refugees tend to stay more often. Other regions do not share the same positive prospects, according to Andrushchenko. More people return from the west of Ukraine, but less from Dnipro.

In some regions, there are few refugees because the regions are “unfriendly for internally displaced persons” – meaning they could not find a job, the local prices were too high to get by, or the local society appeared “closed.”

Why Ukrainians Choose Sheremetyevo

After Russia closed the Kursk crossing along with its land entry points into Latvia, the airport became the only official way to enter the country for Ukrainians. The route involves traveling from Kyiv to Warsaw by bus, then to Minsk, and finally to Moscow by plane.

Upon arrival, Ukrainians must undergo “filtration.” Russian border officers interrogate them for fealty or affiliation to Ukraine. They check their documents and go through their phones to search for contacts, photos, messages, or any other record that could reveal a pro-Kyiv stance that would make them illegible to return to Russian-occupied Donbas.

“We were kept on the floor in a little room for 27 hours,” Angelina, a young woman who recently returned home to occupied Donetsk to sell property, told Kyiv Post.

“They handed me a questionnaire with absurd questions. For instance, ‘How do you feel about the Special Military Operation?’ – as the Russians call the war. If you express non-support for the war against Ukraine, you’ll face problems. If you say you support it, they might let you pass, but you’ll be at risk, as your profile could fall into the hands of Ukrainian special services – what then?”

“It’s a heavy moral burden,” she said.

Even after waiting days without food or much water, there is still no guarantee returnees will be allowed to enter Russian-controlled territory.

The Slippery Statistics

Andriushchenko’s team checked the data they received from Russian officials against initial from informants “who are based inside Mariupol,” he told Kyiv Post. They believe several thousand more people have tried to return home but have been pushed back at the border.

“Apart from the 120,000-130,000 people who entered occupied territory, around 200,000 were refused entry,” the Mariupol city council adviser said. “Another 50,000-70,000 were banned from entering Russia through the border crossing point at Minsk.”

The 130,000 estimate was given in August by lawmaker Maksym Tkachenko. Tkachenko is part of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party and chairs a parliamentary group representing the rights of internally displaced Ukrainians. One local government representative from the East told Kyiv Post that the figure could be as high as 300,000, but Andriushchenko said he believed such figures to be “hype.”

The Russians have provided humbler statistics. Sheremetyevo border control representative Oksana Myshchenko told Russian TV channels that a total of 107,000 Ukrainians have arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport since October 2023 and just 83,000 were allowed to enter.

One conclusion is clear – at least 100,000 Ukrainians have made it back into Russian-occupied territory. This number is striking.

“Over 100,000 Ukrainians is quite a large number already,” Volodymyr Vakhitov, director of the Institute of Behavioral Studies at the American University in Kyiv, told Kyiv Post. “However, this number still represents a wide range of vague estimates voiced out by different officials from both sides of the border rather than hard evidence based on samples or surveys,”

Failing to Protect Internally Displaced Ukrainians

Lack of local infrastructure, accommodation, and jobs in host cities are also major problems for IDPs, Vakhitov said. With the scope of the problem millions large, cities and regions need to be supported by national policies, created at the national level.

Despite a successful decentralization reform in Ukraine, local governments in Ukraine still rely on administration in Kyiv to create solutions for IDPs, Vakhitov said. Local communities that host large numbers of people face scale-up challenges as they lack resources to quickly expand the local infrastructure, the AUK Institute for Behavioral Studies deputy director Nataliia Zaika added.

“The major issues they encounter include outdated residential norms, job market regulations and skills mismatch, and securing sufficient resources without additional assistance from the central government.”

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