Lettland verlässt Landminenkonvent
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/world/europe/latvia-land-mine-convention-russia-ukraine.html
Lettland verlässt Landminenkonvent
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/world/europe/latvia-land-mine-convention-russia-ukraine.html
2 Kommentare
**Submission Statement**: Latvia is the first country region to officially pull out of the landmine convention (1997 Ottawa Treaty). The 1997 Ottawa Treaty forbids the use, production, stockpiling, and transferring of landmines. The treaty had came about after the end of the Cold War with the hope to end the use of a type of weapons that has killed many civilians. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has changed the calculus.
Excerpts from article
> Latvia’s Parliament, citing Russian aggression against Ukraine, voted on Wednesday to pull out of an international convention banning anti-personnel mines, starting what is expected to be a rush of departures by Eastern European nations that border Russia or its closest ally, Belarus.
> The vote in Parliament made Latvia the first country in the region to act on a decision taken last month by three Baltic States and Poland to quit the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, which prohibits the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of land mines.
> …
> The movement to exit the convention began after a visit to Ukraine’s border with Belarus in August last year by Laurynas Kasciunas, Lithuania’s defense minister at the time.
> Mr. Kasciunas said in an interview on Wednesday that Ukrainian military personnel had explained to him how difficult it was to defend borders without land mines, recalling that they had told him: “Get out of all these conventions — Russia follows no laws or customs of war. Do it while you still have time.”