Use of mines on Europe's eastern flank with Russia

Saturday 20 December 2025

Along Europe’s eastern flank, from the Arctic approaches of northern Finland to the marshlands and steppes bordering the Black Sea, landmines have returned as one of the defining military technologies of the age. Long associated with twentieth-century total war and its grim humanitarian legacy, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines are once again being manufactured, deployed and adapted at scale in response to the perceived and actual threat posed by the Russian Federation. Their renewed prominence tells a story not only of military necessity, but also of legal ambiguity, industrial mobilisation and the uneasy balance between deterrence and humanitarian restraint.

The eastern flank itself is not a single front but a chain of strategic anxieties. Finland and the Baltic States sit directly on Russia’s borders. Poland guards the land bridge between Kaliningrad and Belarus. Romania faces Russian power projected through the Black Sea. Ukraine, although not a NATO member, has become the central laboratory of contemporary mine warfare. In each of these theatres, mines are used less as relics of the past than as modern tools of area denial, delay and psychological pressure.

Manufacture and supply

The manufacture of mines along the eastern flank reflects two overlapping realities. First, many European states dismantled or mothballed their mine production capacity after the end of the Cold War, especially following the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines. Secondly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine shattered the assumption that large-scale ground warfare in Europe was improbable. As a result, production has re-emerged in modified and often legally nuanced forms.

Russia herself never joined the Ottawa Convention and retains extensive industrial capacity to produce both traditional blast mines and more sophisticated scatterable and sensor-fused devices. Russian mines such as the PMN series or POM directional fragmentation mines are simple, cheap and brutal. They can be manufactured in large numbers and deployed by hand, artillery, drones or specialised mine-laying vehicles. In Ukraine Russian forces have demonstrated an industrial approach to mine warfare, laying belts dozens of kilometres deep, often combining anti-tank and anti-personnel systems to protect artillery positions and defensive lines.

On the European side many countries have announced their withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, including Finland, Poland, Ukraine and all the Baltic States. Even before formal withdrawal, and amongst remaining Ottawa Convention members this has not meant the abandonment of mine warfare. Instead production shifted towards systems that are legally framed as anti-vehicle, command-detonated or remotely controlled, even when their battlefield effects blur into the anti-personnel category. Modern European mines often incorporate self-destruct or self-neutralisation mechanisms, time limits and electronic safeguards intended to reduce long-term civilian risk.

Finland offers a telling example. For decades she relied on mines as a cornerstone of territorial defence against a numerically superior Russian army. After joining the Ottawa Convention, Finland dismantled much of her traditional mine inventory but invested heavily in alternatives such as remotely controlled explosive barriers, intelligent obstacles and rapidly deployable anti-vehicle systems. The industrial base was not destroyed but transformed, allowing for rapid adaptation once the security environment deteriorated after 2022.

In Poland and the Baltic States, production has focused on anti-tank mines, modular obstacles and mixed obstacle systems integrated with surveillance drones and sensors. These systems are designed to slow and channel armoured formations rather than indiscriminately deny terrain. Nonetheless in a battlefield environment, the distinction between protecting a tank and maiming a soldier is often academic.

Ukraine represents a special case. Faced with existential threat, she has become both a major user and an improvised manufacturer of mines. Ukrainian industry, working under wartime conditions, has produced simple blast devices, adapted commercial explosives and repurposed artillery munitions into mines. At the same time Ukraine has received mine systems from partners, including anti-tank mines and remotely deployed obstacles. Although formally a party to the Ottawa Convention, Ukraine has argued that survival requires flexibility in interpretation, a position tacitly accepted by many of her supporters.

Use and doctrine

The use of mines along Europe’s eastern flank reflects defensive logic. Unlike expeditionary wars, this is a theatre where territory matters deeply and where delay can be decisive. Mines are used to slow advances, protect flanks, secure logistics routes and buy time for mobilisation and reinforcement.

In Ukraine mines have shaped the war’s speed. Russian defensive belts in occupied territories have relied heavily on dense minefields, often poorly mapped and inadequately marked. These minefields have inflicted heavy casualties on Ukrainian assault units, slowed counter-offensives and forced the allocation of scarce engineering resources. Ukrainian forces, in turn, have laid mines to protect newly liberated areas and to disrupt Russian assaults. The result is one of the most heavily mined landscapes in the world, with consequences that will last decades.

Along NATO’s eastern flank mines are integrated into deterrence planning. The assumption is not that they will be used lightly, but that their existence complicates Russian operational planning. Minefields, combined with precision fire and air power, increase the cost of any potential incursion. They are intended to signal resolve as much as to destroy equipment.

However the use of mines also carries psychological weight. For soldiers, the presence of mines induces caution, slows movement and increases stress. For civilians, mines turn fields, forests and villages into spaces of fear long after fighting ends. This dual effect is well understood by military planners and contributes to the enduring appeal of mines despite their moral costs.

Legal and moral tension

The return of mines has reopened unresolved tensions between humanitarian law and military necessity. The Ottawa Convention sought to eliminate anti-personnel mines precisely because of their disproportionate impact on civilians. Yet the convention was drafted in an era when many European states believed they would never again fight large-scale defensive wars on their own soil.

Russia’s refusal to join the convention exposes one side of the dilemma. By rejecting the ban, she accepts international opprobrium in exchange for unrestricted use of a cheap and effective weapon. European states, bound by treaty and domestic law, must navigate narrower channels. They rely on technical distinctions, command detonation and self-neutralisation features to remain compliant, while acknowledging that in practice the battlefield effects may be similar.

Ukraine’s situation is the most morally fraught. She is defending her population and sovereignty against invasion, yet her land will bear the scars of mine warfare long after victory. The ethical calculus shifts when survival is at stake, but it does not disappear. Every mine laid today becomes a future demining task, measured not only in money but in limbs and lives.

Industrial revival and long shadows

The resurgence of mine manufacture along Europe’s eastern flank is part of a broader rearmament. Defence industries once oriented towards expeditionary missions are retooling for territorial defence. Mines, because of their simplicity and cost-effectiveness, fit easily into this shift. They can be produced quickly, stored cheaply and deployed by conscripts as well as professionals.

Yet the long shadows remain. Mines outlast wars. They ignore ceasefires and peace treaties. Along Europe’s eastern flank, the decision to manufacture and use them is driven by fear of aggression and the logic of deterrence. It is a rational choice in an irrational world. But it binds future generations to the consequences of today’s security decisions.

In this sense mines are both a symptom and a warning. They signal that Europe once again anticipates war on her own soil. They also remind us that even the most defensive of weapons carries costs that extend far beyond the moment of crisis. The eastern flank may require obstacles and barriers to protect it from Russian aggression, but it will also require sustained moral and political effort to ensure that the tools of defence do not become permanent instruments of harm.