2025’s International Day for Landmine Awareness is marked by a sense of defeat, as Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland are rethinking their landmine bans amid growing threats from Russia
April 4 marks the International Day for Landmine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, a United Nations–designated day intended to raise global attention to the devastating impact of landmines and to encourage continued progress in mine clearance and victim assistance. The date was chosen in 2005 as a launch point for expanded international cooperation on mine action initiatives.
In 2025, the day is being observed with growing concern. As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, several NATO members bordering Russia—including Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—have announced plans to withdraw from the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, the landmark international agreement banning the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of antipersonnel landmines.
For decades, landmines have been broadly condemned by international bodies as weapons capable of causing indiscriminate harm long after the end of a given conflict. Landmines were widely used in conflicts starting in World War II. In the late 1970s and 1980s, various international organizations began campaigning to end their use. The Ottawa Treaty, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1997, was a major milestone in those efforts. The treaty, now signed by 165 countries, prohibits nearly all activity related to antipersonnel mines.
Notably absent from the list of signatories are the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
Last month, the defense ministers of Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia formally declared their intention to exit the agreement. The move, they said, was meant to signal their countries’ preparedness to “use every necessary measure to defend our territory and freedom” against threats from Russia.
Tamar Gabelnick, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, told The Media Line that the countries’ intended withdrawal could unravel decades of progress on the issue.
According to the UN, around 5,000 people were killed by landmines in 2023—down from an estimated 20,000 annual deaths before the global anti-landmine campaign began. Since the adoption of the Ottawa Treaty, 55 million stockpiled landmines have been destroyed and over 100 million square miles have been cleared of mines.
Successes like these are now in jeopardy, Gabelnick said—not only due to strategic shifts in Eastern Europe, but also because of cutbacks from the United States. “About 40% of international funding for landmine action used to come from the US,” she explained. As countries redirect their budgets to urgent defense priorities, she warned that mine clearance efforts may be neglected.
National security concerns cannot justify the use of such a barbaric and indiscriminate weapon
Martin Barber, former director of the UN Mine Action Service, echoed that concern. “National security concerns cannot justify the use of such a barbaric and indiscriminate weapon,” he told The Media Line, emphasizing that the majority of those killed by landmines are civilians—particularly children and farmers.
But not everyone agrees. In countries like Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states, where fears of a Russian invasion have intensified, many see landmine use as a necessary evil.
Tomasz Grzywaczewski, a fellow at the Warsaw Institute, described the reversal as “the direct outcome of what we’ve seen in Ukraine.”
We take the threat of a potential invasion from Russia or Belarus, essentially a Russian proxy, very seriously
“We take the threat of a potential invasion from Russia or Belarus, essentially a Russian proxy, very seriously,” he told The Media Line.
The failed Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023 served as a key lesson for policymakers and military strategists across the region. Defensive lines reinforced with landmines were effective at slowing enemy infantry, Grzywaczewski said—an insight not lost on NATO’s eastern flank.
“This shift in thinking is part of what Polish officials now describe as a broader ‘military recalibration,’” he said.
Among the other reforms under consideration is a Polish government plan to reinstate compulsory military service, another indication of how deeply the Ukraine war has altered defense priorities.
Barber warned that such a shift could lead Europe down a dangerous path. “While many military officers agree that antipersonnel mines should be banned and that their deployment has often proved to be more dangerous to their forces than to the forces of their enemies, there are others in every state who take a different view,” he said. “It would be unfortunate if this minority view were allowed to prevail by political leaders.”
Gabelnick also argued that the strategic advantages of landmine use are overstated. “A minefield might slow down enemy forces for no more than a matter of hours and must be constantly monitored by military forces to have any effect at all,” she said.
To perhaps gain an hour or two, they will be saddled with deadly contamination that will take years, if not decades, to clear, threatening communities until the expensive and dangerous work is done
“To perhaps gain an hour or two, they will be saddled with deadly contamination that will take years, if not decades, to clear, threatening communities until the expensive and dangerous work is done,” she added.
NEXT FROM
Top Stories
That long-term cost is being felt acutely in Israel, a country that, despite using few landmines in recent years, is still dealing with legacy contamination from previous conflicts.
Roi Maman, a former engineering officer in the Israeli military who now works for a landmine oversight company, said clearing Israel’s minefields could take another 90 years. “About 90% of Israel’s minefields are concentrated in the Golan Heights and the Arava Valley,” he told The Media Line. “In the Arava, many of the projects are for solar energy. After an area is cleared, they install solar panels.”
Clearing just one acre of land can cost up to 400,000 shekels, or about $108,000, Maman said.
Israel’s military is also active in locating and neutralizing landmines planted by enemy forces, especially roadside bombs used by armed groups near Israel’s northern borders.
“The IDF and police have done very good work during the war in locating and safely neutralizing them before civilians could come into contact with them,” Boaz Shapira, a researcher at the Alma Research and Education Center, told The Media Line.
According to Shapira, groups operating out of Lebanon—including Iran-backed forces—frequently use both improvised explosive devices and factory-made landmines. “In Lebanon, they’ve even developed clever deployment tactics, like hiding devices in trees, making them harder to detect,” he said.
As the world marks International Day for Landmine Awareness, advocates are calling for renewed attention to the risks these weapons pose—not only in conflict zones like Ukraine and Lebanon but in places far removed from the battlefield.
Barber and Gabelnick both cautioned that once countries begin to walk back their commitments, it becomes harder to reestablish consensus. The achievements of the past 30 years, they argue, can be reversed far more quickly than they were earned.