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Former Defence Secretary says UK must be prepared to use landmines in Russia war

2025-03-24 00:00:00.0 每日快报-政治原网页

Former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace (Image: Getty)

The UK should withdraw from treaties banning the use of landmines because they may be needed in a conflict against Russia, former Conservative Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said. The UK and allies signed agreements including the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, also known as the Ottowa Treaty, partly due to a campaign led by the late Princess Diana. But Sir Ben said potential adversaries such as Russia, China and North Korea had simply refused to sign, placing the UK and other European nations at a disadvantage.

He said: “From my time as Secretary of State for Defence, I have first-hand experience of how the Ottawa Treaty prevented us and others from helping Ukraine. I was beset by lawyers applying old and out of date treaties to new capabilities which are vital to saving life and to countering Russian lethality.” The senior Tory, who was defence secretary from 2019 to 2023, made the comments as he backed a report published today by think tank Policy Exchange which urges the UK to leave both the landmine convention and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use of explosive weapons which scatter small “bomblets” over an area.

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The report’s authors, who include barrister and academic Lord Verdirame and former senior RAF officer Air Marshal Edward Stringer, argue that the war in Ukraine has shown that anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions are extremely effective weapons, not least as a means of deterring invasion.

They argue that the UK and its European allies will not be able to deter aggression against Europe without rebuilding stockpiles of anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions.

The Ottowa Treaty was signed following Princess Diana’s campaign to ban landmines. She visited Angola in southern Africa where civil war had left the country contaminated by more than 15 million landmines which were killing and causing devastating injuries to civilians. However the Policy Exchange authors argue that the UK and other European countries had always expected to use mines provided by the US, which did not sign the treaty, if needed.

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“Like most bans, the problem these treaties were trying to address lay not in the equipment they control, but in their irresponsible and reckless use by certain powers. Not surprisingly those powers — Russia, China , North Korea — are the very powers which have refused to sign up to such prohibitions.

“But, 28 years ago, the battle field was a very different place. No one imagined that swarms of drones, autonomous vehicles, and carpets of sensors would transform war. Electronic sentries have replaced human ones, and cameras have done the same to binoculars.”

He added: “While the treaties have stood still for nearly three decades, our adversaries haven’t. All treaties must always be able to be modernised and, if not, then Governments should be prepared to leave them.”

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Princess Diana in Angola (Image: Getty)

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