The Pentagon said Wednesday that it was sending antipersonnel mines to Ukraine, underscoring a broader Biden administration push to bolster Kyiv as Russian forces seek to advance on several fronts and both sides maneuver for possible negotiations.
The moves to lessen restrictions on weapons sent to Ukraine comes in the waning months of the Biden administration, which is trying to help the Ukrainians shore up their defenses and preserve some leverage in the talks that President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to pursue.
A sapper of the 24th mechanized brigade named after King Danylo installs an anti-tank landmine, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, on the outskirts of the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, Ukraine October 30, 2024. Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via REUTERS
Since Trump’s election this month, the Biden administration has authorized the use of ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles against targets inside Russia. It also approved the use of American contractors on Ukrainian territory to help the country maintain its F-16 aircraft, Patriot antimissile systems and other weaponry.
The Biden administration is scrambling to get more than $7 billion of weaponry and munitions to Ukraine before the end of its term on Jan. 20.
Trump hasn’t commented on those steps or explained in detail his own negotiating strategy to bring the conflict to an end.
Earlier this week, Rep. Mike Waltz, the Republican congressman tapped to serve as Trump’s national security adviser, criticized Biden’s decision to let Ukraine fire ATACMS missiles into Russia.
“It’s another step up the escalation ladder, and no one knows where this is going,” Waltz said on Fox News. “So this is a development, but it’s a tactical one. Trump is talking grand strategy here. How do we get both sides to the table to end this war?”
But some military experts said the additional support to Ukraine could strengthen its hand as Kyiv and Moscow maneuver to shape the battlefield in anticipation of potential talks next year.
“The Biden decision on both ATACMS and land mines appears designed to provide leverage to the Ukrainians and what everyone has begun to see is an inevitable negotiation following the Trump administration arrival,” James Stavridis , the former North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander and a retired admiral, said in an interview. “It will be helpful, but certainly not determinative, in terms of the overall outcome of a discussion of ending the hostilities.”
Biden administration officials have said that their decision on the ATACMS was intended as a response to Russia’s decision to enlist the help of some 10,000 North Korean troops as Moscow seeks to evict Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region.
Ukraine’s use Tuesday of the ATACMS against an ammunition depot in Russia’s Bryansk region was followed the next day by Ukraine’s employment of British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles. Ukraine launched at least 10 Storm Shadow missiles at Russia’s Kursk region, according to Ukrainian and Western officials.
Kyiv has controlled more than 100 square miles of territory in the region since a surprise invasion in August. In recent weeks Moscow has launched a major offensive and has been clawing back some of that land.
As with the ATACMS move, discussions about sending antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine began before the election, a senior administration official said. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. CQ Brown , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued the case in high-level meetings that sending those weapons was the best way to help Ukraine stabilize the front lines, where Russia has started to make rapid advances this fall.
“They’ve kind of changed their tactics a bit,” Austin said Wednesday of the Russian military. “They don’t lead with their mechanized forces anymore. They lead with dismounted forces who are able to close and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanized forces.”
The U.S. is sending M74 antipersonnel mines that can be delivered by artillery and are only to be used in Ukraine. They contain a number of features that are intended to limit the longer-term risk to civilians, a U.S. official said, including technology that prevents them from exploding after a preset period. The period in which they are deadly can range from four hours to two weeks, the U.S. official said.
The U.S. already provides antitank mines to the Ukrainians and has been sending cluster munitions to Ukraine since 2023.
“Mines have been very important to Ukraine throughout the war, but particularly now. They have been used to compensate for a lack of manpower, either to defend Ukraine’s position or impede Russian advances,” said Michael Kofman , a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank, who has frequently visited Ukrainian front-line units.
The U.S. estimates that Russia has deployed about two million land mines around Ukraine, mostly in eastern provinces in the first year of the war when Russian troops were struggling to stop a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Russian mines are comparatively primitive, according to U.S. officials, and will remain a threat to soldiers and civilians alike for decades.
More than 160 countries have signed a treaty banning the use and production of land-mines, but Russia and the U.S. aren’t among the signatories.
The Biden administration still has $7 billion of funding it can use to send equipment to Ukraine. That funding reimburses the Pentagon for munitions and other equipment drawn from its own stocks, as the Defense Department has done since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced a new, $275 million tranche of security assistance that includes more ammunition, drones, missiles, armor systems and spare parts for equipment. The antipersonnel mines weren’t included in that amount.
Since September, British officials had pushed Washington to allow Ukraine to use the Storm Shadows against targets on Russian soil, officials said. The U.K. needed U.S. signoff because Storm Shadows rely on guidance systems supported by U.S. companies to fly low to the ground.
While Ukrainian military and political officials have praised the ATACMS and Storm Shadows, they have a limited supply, and it couldn’t be determined if they will get more of them. Both the U.S., which hasn’t moved to provide more ATACMS, and the U.K., Europe’s biggest defense spender, have to contend with their own limited supply of long-range missiles.
Military and other officials expressed doubt that it would be possible for the Biden administration to deliver all the equipment it is authorized to send to Ukraine by Jan. 20. Pentagon officials this week said they were identifying the needs of Ukraine with the availability of equipment, saying they could only send stocks that could be backfilled from other American supplies.
