OF THE
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The use of PFM-1 'butterfly' mines against civilians is prohibited by the Geneva conventions - but this evidently isn't stopping Ukraine Saturday night, just after 9 pm, thunderous explosions rocked central Donetsk. Shortly after, there were announcements that air defense had shot down Ukrainian-fired missiles containing "Butterfly" (or "Petal") mines. Given that over 300 of these mines are packed into each of the Ukrainian-fired rockets, central Donetsk would literally be a minefield. While Ukraine has been using these mines on the Donbass for many months, in recent days they have intensely bombarded Gorlovka and Donetsk neighbourhoods with them.
Initially targeted were the hard-hit districts of Kievskiy in the north, Kirovsky in the southwest, and Kuibyshevkiy in the west. But as of Saturday night, Ukraine hammered central Donetsk with them. And now, walking in the city centre is a nightmare, one I had to endure to document how widespread these mines are here: in central streets and walkways, near apartments, in parks...
On July 30, in a densely inhabited working-class district of western Donetsk, in a field with garden plots for nearby apartment residents, I saw the nefarious "petal" or "butterfly" mines which Ukraine the following day dropped on the central of Donetsk. In the large courtyard of an apartment complex, I watched from a safe distance as Emergency Services timer-detonated eight mines they had found around the grounds. The day prior, they destroyed 26. Another 150 were located and destroyed using a radio-controlled minesweeper. But there remains much work to restore the streets and courtyards to safety. Some types of these anti-personnel mines have a self-destruct timer. Others, including the ones Ukraine is firing, have a years-long shelf life. They do pretty much no damage to military vehicles, and as such their use in Donbass is insidious - deliberately targeting civilians, to leave them maimed. Out of the 6 million such mines Ukraine initially declared in its possession, only 2 million have been reportedly destroyed as of 2018.
Comment: Footage from the incident has emerged on Twitter:
As noted in the article, attacks like these do appear to have been on the increase in recent years, but, what with Pelosi's whirlwind visit to Taiwan, the timing of this tragedy is also notable: