Poland wants to deploy anti-personnel mines on its borders with Russia and Belarus as part of the Eastern Shield project.
This was stated by Poland's Deputy Minister of Defense, Pawel Beida, during an interview on RMF24.
His comments come amid Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland announcing their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines on Tuesday.
"We have no other choice. The situation on the border is serious. I'm talking about the Polish-Belarusian and Polish-Russian borders... This will be one of the elements of the 'Eastern Shield,'" Beida said.
He added that while Poland does not currently have anti-personnel mines, "there are possibilities to produce them."
The Polish Armed Group's factories will be responsible for manufacturing the mines, although Beida did not go into details. "We're talking about orders for several hundred thousand, possibly a million (units)," he explained.
Commenting on the intention of the Baltic states and Poland to withdraw from the convention, Estonia's Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna described it as wrong that:
"We are banning ourselves from using weapons that Russia is ready to deploy against us."
