Recently, I was in the back seat of a police van next to Irina Pryanishnikova, a tall, slender, dark-haired officer of the Kyiv regional police. We were on our way to a Christmas party put on by the police for children at a nearby orphanage. She pulled out her phone and started scrolling through images, showing me photos of dolls, teddy bears, and soda cans. Each of these is a land mine designed to look like a toy or a commonly used item.
The Russians deliberately disguise small anti-personnel land mines in such innocuous-seeming items and conceal them in high-traffic areas, such as playgrounds, where they are likely to maim — but not kill — innocent children and civilians who pass by. This is a war crime that directly contravenes the Anti-Personnel Land Mines Ban Convention, which prohibits the use of these heinous weapons and requires action be taken to address their long-lasting effects. Member states of the United Nations must lean on this convention to put an end to this cruel and senseless violence and to ensure that the Russian perpetrators are tried at the International Court of Justice. Doing so will send a message that, even in war, terrorizing civilians is an unjustifiable act.
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