Croatia declared free of landmines after 31 years
glashrvatske.hrt.hr
glashrvatske.hrt.hr
https://hongkongfp.com/2025/09/19/hong-kong-to-evacuate-6000...
Not Croatian but Bosnian, 2030 is our target for this milestone and we have to keep de-mining ~70 square kilometres every year to be able to hit that milestone.
Economic aggression is a whole new kind of warfare and plenty destructive, but just saying "you stand on some dirt and we will kill you over it" is a pure waste.
People keep comparing the war in Ukraine to World War II, but they seem to imagine themselves to be Napoleon. Maybe France could have gotten richer by winning, but today that kind of attack is just lose-lose.
From America, the Yugoslavian war felt like re-fighting some Medieval grudge. I'm sure it made some kind of sense to them at the time.
Bless your naiveness buddy. There are still areas in France where people can't go due to mines from WWI.
Spend some time on Google reading about the Zone Rouge.
But happy to hear the news. Some years ago as I was urban exploring the airfield in Zeljava it has hit someone nearby the field. Happily I just saw the ambulance and the police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasmine_43
How clever we are when we try to kill each other.
The fire traversed the hillside, and every hour or two a landmine would explode.
This was ten years after the war.
Or are the reasons technical, that it is simply too difficult to develop a reliable mechanism for disabling them?
The problem is of the enemy know you use only mines that work for max n hours or m days they just wait for n + 1 hours or m + 1 days.
There is a lot more to say about this, but there are probably people way more qualified than be here to explain it.
For example consider this Department of Defence policy from 2020: https://media.defense.gov/2020/Jan/31/2002242359/-1/-1/1/DOD...
“The Department will continue its commitment not to employ persistent landmines. For the purposes of this policy, ‘persistent landmines’ means landmines that do not incorporate self-destruction mechanisms and self-deactivation features. The Department will only employ, develop, produce, or otherwise acquire landmines that are non-persistent, meaning they must possess self destruction mechanisms and self- deactivation features.”
“ For example, all activated landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in 30 days or less after emplacement and will possess a back-up self-deactivation feature. Some landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in shorter periods of time, such as two hours or forty-eight hours.”
This distinguishes “self-destruct” where the mine blows itself up and “self-deactivation” where the mine disarms itself. The first is safer because it doesn’t leave explosive material behind, which could chemicaly detoriate and become unstable decades later. The second is used as a failsafe in case the self-destruct fails.
> Or are the reasons technical
They certainly were when the really old mines were made. Some of them are nothing more than just spring loaded pressure plates. But today modern landmines are much more sophisticated. Some of them can distinguish the seismic signature or a truck from a tank. There are also radio controlled mine fields where soldiers can remotely activate / deactivate the whole mine field as the threat evolves.
In practice, only wealthy countries are willing to pay for mines with reliable self-destruct and target discrimination technology.
That said, even if the trigger is disabled, it's still an explosive device and should still be cleared (or never placed in the first place, as the Ottawa treaty says which the US, China, Russia, India and Pakistan are not a part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty)
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland exited.
Ukraine has not officially withdrawn from the treaty, but ignored it. Last year they officially announced withdrawal.
Unfortunately anti-personnel mines are highly useful in case of war, especially for defender.
Note that the bar is pretty high for reliable here. Say 1 in a thousand isn't disarmed or destroyed.
Would you encourage your child to play in an area where ten thousand mines were dropped? A thousand? Five hundred?
The particular patch of land is still suspected to contain mines, although "in theory" they were all cleared out.
The client didn't want to pay for the minesweeeping tech team to ensure safety, the workers didn't want to wade into a forest that might still be mined.
I suspect this is not an isolated case. It's far from over.
On one hand it might be a real risk.
On the other hand nobody except the timber industry is cutting down a random tree in the middle of the woods. If you're trimming trees on a power line cut or at the edge of a clearing you're working somewhere that has already been gone over with men and machine to make that cut or clearing. So it might be one of those "basically no chance but due to rules... blah blah licensed professionals... blah blah insurance.... blah blah" where even though everyone knows it's fine the guy who has to do the work can't just go do the work without paying someone else to take the liability, etc, etc.
But then again, it's Croatia. They're not rich enough to afford that kind of dysfunction.
Turtles all the way down.
Thing is, you can't narrow it down to some acceptable level of risk. Mines are by definition stealthy, the only way to reduce the risk is to eliminate it by combing over everything, which is extremely hard, tedious, expensive, etc.
Guess they will have more work now
They make me immediately go “oh I get it”
Only when I got out of it, I realised how stupid idea that was to keep following the GPS, on some country side villages the markings of the war were still visible, with abandoned buildings full of bullet holes.
Naturally having mines still around was a possibility that I completly forgot about.
Think of it this way: bullet holes are where the fighting took place, while front lines have fluctuated. You don't want to mine an area that your soldiers might want to advance through. Land mines are placed when front lines have stabilised (like they are right now in Ukraine) to prevent the other side from advancing through. You only do that once your side has no intention of advancing further.
As such, land mines were usually properly documented and clearly marked as such after the war with giant skulls and red tapes, usually with some combo of words "PAZI MINE" ("beware, mines"). So while there are still rural areas that are littered with bullet holes, that does not mean those same areas were full of mines. It's also highly unlikely for a mine to be on any road, especially if it looks fairly well-maintained. You can take a road going through the minefield just fine, but you should never be one of those urban explorers that intentionally strays off of the road to look at the ruins on the side of that road.
I lived along former front lines my entire life, I spotted some unexploded ones with my own eyes a long time ago, I'm not dead yet. That said, I am more equipped to handle such situations than you are, as I was taught how to do that since my first days in school. I firmly believe that outsiders are frequently overreacting these days, which is completely understandable, but that doesn't mean it is rational. Your odds of winning a lottery are infinitely higher than dying to a landmine in the few days you spend here. You can increase them by doing something stupid like avoiding those markings, but besides that you'll be fine.
What caused the sudden uptick in 2008?
Another common reason for some of the upticks are natural disasters (most frequently floods or landslides) hitting known minefields, which then makes the position more difficult to assess.
There's also a very particular type of mine that doesn't explode on the spot, but shoots ~1m into the air before exploding and sending shrapnel in a large radius which is by far the most deadly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROM-1). The reason I'm mentioning it is that there was one particular incident with 5 casualties at a scrapyard that year. That same mine is also responsible for the only casualty last year, when a 19-yo goat herder tried to get his goats back on the road.
Knowing that ten, twenty, maybe 50 years after a conflict ends a completely innocent and unrelated person, maybe even not born at the time you did it, might die or get permanently disabled is a sick move.
Place where I grew up is still full of landmines (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and some of the people who placed those mines are government officials today, loved by EU because of their natural resources.
Also I think that if you live next to a warmongering country you certainly care more about making a military invasion the shittiest and the most vile thing for the aggressor that you can think of and landmines are cheap and effective there.
I think it's a sufficient trade off that landmines self-disable themselves in, say, 5 years or so. If the war continues you'll keep planting more and when it ends you'll just wait a few years and go collect them.
It is entirely defensible on account of wanting to reduce risk of being invaded by Russia.
PS: Poland also exited the treaty. I entirely support use of mines on territory of mu country for purposes such as reducing risk of Russian invading Poland again. Though deployment should not be premature.
But I hope that production and stockpiling of enough mines is ongoing.
If you think that is indefensible - are you aware of how WW II went for Baltics, Poland, Belarus? In Poland about 16% of population was murdered, in Belarus about 20% of population was murdered. And Poland and Baltics got decades of occupation on top of that. Belarus still has not managed to get from Russia's boot as of 2026.
War crimes are bad, but using ATP land mines is not a war crime by itself.
For example ATP land mines with reliable self-destruction used properly are OK (yes, some failure rate will exist - in case of war you rarely have 100% sunshine and rainbows solutions).
While dropping randomly land mines over city to target civilians is bad, evil, war crime and terrorism.
In that vein, the Baltics withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty is commendable because they've stopped lying to everybody about what they're going to do come wartime.
There is not a single doubt in my mind that mines are useful. As are executions of people suspected of collaborating with the enemy. As is instituting precautionary concentration camps to round up folks who might have some bond with the enemy. The utility of dropping atom bombs on civilian centers is probably extremely high in negotiating with the enemy. But, like mines, these things are unconscionable, and when you start using these highly effective means, you should really ask yourself: "am I the good guy in this conflict?"
For me, the answer is no. I don't think we should commit war crimes, which somehow has become a controversial opinion.
For example ATP land mines with reliable self-destruction used properly are OK (yes, some failure rate will exist - in case of war you rarely have 100% sunshine and rainbows solutions).
While dropping randomly land mines over city to target civilians is bad, evil, war crime and terrorism.
Yes, in case of war it is very likely that murdering soldiers of other side will become necessary. It does not make executing PoW acceptable, but guns/mines etc will be used.
Even if you build in a self destruction mechanism to landmines(1), this indiscriminate nature remains.
On top of that, you mention something about peppering cities with land mines not being ok (and it wouldn't be), but I'm not convinced that anyone's doing that. And still civilians make up 90% of the victims.
Of course, there's another thing playing into that 90% figure, which is that, by and large, mines are not very effective against military tartgets because they have ample means to dispose of them. Given the fact that our target here is Russia, and not some poorly funded guerilla outfit, I think this should be taken into consideration.
Pairing their war crimey nature and their low efficacy (2), I personally cannot get behind withdrawing from the Ottawa treaty.
There is much more to say about this, and much more has been said about this. I would recommend giving
https://www.humanity-inclusion.org.uk/en/landmines-can-no-lo...
a skim. They give alternative, more effective, less inhumane, solutions to the problems that mines try (and largely fail) to solve.
(1) Which is ultimately a bit of a hypothetical exercise, because the nations that left the treaty, well, left the treaty. They didn't propose an amendment allowing for temporary mines, they left the treaty. And on top of that the failure rate for such smart mines is like 20%. You get 1/5th of a war crime I guess.
(2) Earlier I said something to the effect of "I'm sure they're effective". At the time I hadn't read up on the actual effectiveness of mines, because to me, the effectiveness of a method plays no role in whether it should be allowed in combat. I've since read up on that part too, and I'm reasonably convinced they're not very effective in our current context.
Many types of sophisticated mines cannot be trivially cleared with line charges or engineering vehicles. Soviet style mines can be cleared this way but aren't the only kind that exist.
This tech isn't sophisticated but it costs money and requires maintenance. Many militaries don't use them because they want weapons that can sit in a warehouse for 50 years with zero maintenance.
The military purpose of mines is not to kill anyone. It is to deny use of space in order to shape the battlefield and trap the adversary in areas where they are exposed to other weapons. Mines are highly effective at this purpose and will be for the foreseeable future against almost all adversaries. This is not controversial.
The "expert" in the linked article has no background in mine warfare, only EOD. This became obvious when I was reading the article because it presented an unexpectedly naive understanding of mine warfare. That perspective might make sense if your only experience is clearing old Soviet mines and IEDs but it doesn't generalize.
You are underestimating what kind of evil things people had done and will do. This was in fact done.
> Even if you build in a self destruction mechanism to landmines(1), this indiscriminate nature remains.
Would you claim that dropping bombs from planes is also war crime? Because if mines are placed in exclusion zones or deployed directly in front on enemy charge then mines can be as discriminate as alternatives.
> Of course, there's another thing playing into that 90% figure, which is that, by and large, mines are not very effective against military tartgets because they have ample means to dispose of them. Given the fact that our target here is Russia, and not some poorly funded guerilla outfit, I think this should be taken into consideration.
In Ukraine mines were in fact effective, both against Russia and Ukraine.
> because they have ample means to dispose of them
Main benefit of using mines is slowing down enemy and forcing them to deploy means to dispose them
It drastically lowers speed of advance, even if mines harm noone in the end.
> And on top of that the failure rate for such smart mines is like 20%.
I heard about much better failure rates. Do you have a reliable source for that 20%? I would be happy to educate myself (and maybe change my opinion)
> I would recommend giving > https://www.humanity-inclusion.org.uk/en/landmines-can-no-lo... > a skim
I did, and their claim of "Minefields can now be breached in minutes, using armoured engineering vehicles and explosive line charges." is highly misleading.
For example Russia lost piles of tanks and other combat vehicles around Vuhledar, large part of them to remotely deployed mines.
For other side, Ukrainian summer offensive failed in large part due to massive mine fields (there were also other factors like insufficient supply of armoured engineering vehicles and explosive line charges and Russian helicopters sniping ones that were trying to breach minefields).
If you restrict claim to ATP mines - they are still useful and they are nightmare to advancing military. Yes, after war they will be also horrible for civilians if not cleaned up.
Manipulation/mistake in quoted source is that any military thing can now be breached in minutes or faster, at least in some cases with proper tools deployed in proper position. The trick is that it is not reliable, you may lack this tools, you may miss window for deploying them, they may be opposed or stopped.
Yes, sometimes mines can be defeated quickly, mines are not win button, mines will not solve all problems. It does not change that mines are extremely useful and side not using them (or giving up ATP mines) is at huge handicap.
> I'm reasonably convinced they're not very effective in our current context.
I am not, at all, and as far as I know this is widely shared opinion among people who are actual experts in military matters. (I am not one)
And don't forget, russians are completely fine with usage of all kind of mines as well as targeting civil critical infrastructure.
For example, Finland has a program that will mine the entire border with Russia in just hours if Russia invades.
I can't in good conscience say that the Ukrainians are evil for laying mines well after the invasion started, even though we all know that when the fighting eventually stops it's going to be a disaster to deal with.
Now the Balkans was a different story, where mines were intentionally laid in areas to target civilians. So in the end, like any device designed to kill, it's how and why it is employed that makes the act "evil" or not.
As you are aware, in the Balkans this was exclusively done in areas to harm civilians, deep into other countries. I have a plum garden that was near the enemy lines in the 90s, and it was mined. We had to arrange demining squad to go through it, and I still have childhood memories of their tools (mine detectors) being left overnight at our place. Not a memory any person should have.
It wasn’t.
While there were probably some areas that were mined with the intention of harming civilians, most of the mines were laid in places where you would expect the enemy to advance. In the section of the front where I was located, all minefields were laid with the intention of slowing down or preventing enemy infiltration (which does not exclude areas near human settlements).
There was simply no point in mining places that were under your control and where you expected your people to live after the war, unless it was necessary.
The enemy will lose a few soldiers, but will then clear a marked path. The long term effects far outweigh any short-term advantage.
Actually at the rate we're going, there will still be active minefield defenses for most of our lifespans.
Whether it does or not is an open-question, and while I understand it of course, the idea we're increasing the use of mines is a sad day. They're so indiscriminate and will no doubt cause injuries far into the future.
The self-clearing is interesting and I hindsight auch an obvious thing to implement.
https://www.osw.waw.pl/pl/publikacje/komentarze-osw/2023-11-... mentions optimistic estimate of 70 years, and other statistics give estimated cleanup time of 740 years.
And in months since then more mines were placed.
Hell, Australia still has WW2 mines.
Cause the latter is pretty common in Europe too, but I'm surprised you have actually minefields which haven't been cleared up in Australia.
[1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-red-zone-la...
It's a group that provides prosthetics to people who have lost body parts due to landmines left over from the Vietnam War.
Even decades later, there are areas in Laos that have so many unexploded bomblets, it's dangerous to do stuff there, or even build.
In order to be effective landmines need to be very close to the land surface thus should be easier enough to detect. Researcher in Japan has succesfully detect using low power radar sub-surface bamboo shoots since they are more expensive than bamboo shoots that are already grown over land surface.
For safe and fast detection mechanism close to the ground aerial UAV can be deploy to scan the the suspected land mine area.
Something is missing and don't add up here, perhaps someone can help explain the situations?
They apparently also made a documentary about it, but I’ve never watched it.
> all known minefields have been cleared
When clearing minefields, one does not miss mines, because that would be lethal! Every cube inch is carefully mapped. It is extremely hard work.
But rats can sniff explosives and do so succesfully.
How does that work for a rat? Sounds interesting.
I am not an expert here, but am a bit familiar with how rescue dogs are trained and this is a method in use.
Then the ground ones do the actual demining.
There has been lots of rain falling from the sky, moving earth, since the mines were laid.
I mean, I get it, I would be scared shitless too if I had Russia at my border. I'm not saying that Poland is bad for doing this (but I'm not saying it's good either). It's more of a general observation about this kind of treaties: (relatively) easy to get into during peacetime, hard to uphold when shit hits the fan.
You should ask people who supported or invented this convention. I never supported it and would support exit from it also before 2014 or 2022.
More cynical answer is that in time of peace refusing to sign up gives you bad PR so you sign up and in case of war you exit it (Finland, Poland, Baltics just did it) or ignore altogether (as Ukraine did). But it just weakens commitment to other conventions and PR hit would not be so bad, so I consider it as a mistake.
but signing up to it while Russia has not even pretended to do so was absurd.