Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a decree on the country's withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the production and use of anti-personnel mines, the presidential website said on Sunday.

Ukraine ratified the convention in 2005.

"Support the proposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine to withdraw Ukraine from the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction of September 18, 1997," the decree, published on Zelenskyy's website, stated.

A senior Ukrainian lawmaker, Roman Kostenko, said that parliamentary approval is still needed to withdraw from the treaty.

"This is a step that the reality of war has long demanded. Russia is not a party to this Convention and is massively using mines against our military and civilians," Kostenko, secretary of the Ukrainian parliament's committee on national security, defence and intelligence, said on his Facebook page.

"We cannot remain tied down in an environment where the enemy has no restrictions," he added, saying that the legislative decision must definitively restore Ukraine's right to effectively defend its territory.

Ukraine's foreign affairs ministry said in a statement posted to its website on Sunday that Russia's use of anti-personnel mines "has created an asymmetric advantage for the aggressor."

"We emphasize that at the time of Ukraine's signing and ratification of the Ottawa Convention, such circumstances did not exist and could not have been foreseen," the statement said.

In March, a joint statement from the defence ministers of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia recommended withdrawing from the landmine ban, citing the rising threat from Russia and its ally Belarus as the reason.

Russia has intensified its offensive operations in Ukraine in recent months, using significant superiority in manpower.

Kostenko did not say when the issue would be debated in parliament.