The move would substantially worsen the regional security crisis.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
Apparently, some European countries are ready to take all sorts of belligerent measures, putting the continent’s regional security architecture at serious risk. Anti-Russian paranoia and pressure from the EU itself to expand military policies are leading to a dangerous escalation of tensions, the consequences of which could be devastating in the future.
Recently, military from Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania formally requested their governments to withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty. The agreement requires its signatories to ban the use of anti-personnel landmines, even in situations of open conflict. According to the Polish and Baltic military, this document prevents their countries from properly dealing with the current military challenges they are facing.
“We believe that in the current security environment it is paramount to provide our defense forces flexibility and freedom of choice to potentially use new weapons systems and solutions to bolster the defense of the Alliance’s vulnerable Eastern Flank. In light of these considerations, we—the Ministers of Defense of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—unanimously recommend withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention. With this decision, we are sending a clear message: our countries are prepared and can use every necessary measure to defend our territory and freedom,” the joint statement reads.
As expected, the military used Russia as a justification for its bellicose actions. When referring to the “Eastern Flank,” the military simply used NATO’s official nomenclature to refer to the line of contact with Russia. In practice, the text is simply a request to revise these countries’ rules on the use of weapons considering the possibility of a confrontation with Moscow in the future.
The convention, to which Poland and the Baltics are signatories, is intended precisely to reduce the number of civilian casualties in cases of military conflict. However, the document has failed to achieve its objective, as several major world powers have failed to approve it. The three major military powers themselves, the US, Russia and China, are not members of the convention, and are free to use anti-personnel mines if they deem it necessary in a hostile situation.
Countries of lesser military relevance in the West, such as Poland and the Baltics, signed the treaty, which seems quite understandable. As NATO members, and the US being the alliance’s leading country, these states in theory do not need to worry about this type of issue, considering that in the event of war Washington which is not a member of the convention would protect them with its own military apparatus, in accordance with NATO’s collective defense clause.
However, what we are seeing recently is a deep process of polarization and conflict of interests within the Western alliance itself. Most European states support the prolongation of the Ukrainian conflict, while the US, since the election of Donald Trump, is increasingly interested in a quick and diplomatic solution. In this scenario, pro-war European countries are beginning to feel unprotected because they see the US’ attitude towards Ukraine as a kind of “abandonment”, which is why they fear that this will happen to them in the future.
The US itself has been fomenting paranoid Russophobic sentiments in European countries for decades. NATO’s anti-Russian narrative has brainwashed an entire generation in Poland and the Baltics. These countries’ decision-makers simply hate Russia and genuinely believe that there is a “Russian threat”. They fear an invasion of their territories after the end of the war in Ukraine, even though Moscow has repeatedly made it clear that it has no territorial or strategic interests in Western countries.
In practice, Poland and the Baltics, under the excuse of “preparing for war with Russia,” are creating real conditions for a future conflict. If these countries violate the Ottawa Convention and start using mines, a serious escalation could occur.
Poland has already made it clear that it wants to mine its border with Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. If these mines start causing fatal incidents against Russian and Belarusian citizens, Moscow and Minsk – which have a joint agreement on collective defense within the Union State – could interpret Poland’s actions as aggression, legitimizing appropriate responses.
The best thing Poland and the Baltics can do for their own security is to ban militarization policies and follow the path paved by Trump’s US for a de-escalation of NATO-Russia relations. There is no advantage for these countries in continuing to worsen the security crisis since they do not have sufficient military capacity to engage in an open conflict with Russia. De-escalation is the only viable option to prevent the worst-case scenario.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
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“The views and opinions expressed in this guest post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Don’t Speak News or John Storm.”
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