US to give antipersonnel mines to Ukraine to help slow the Russian advance

Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The U.S. defense chief says the Biden administration will give Ukraine antipersonnel land mines to help it slow Russia’s battlefield advances. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s announcement marks Washington’s second major policy shift in a week, after its decision to let Ukraine use longer-range American missiles in attacks into Russia. The war has largely been going Moscow’s way in recent months, with Russia’s bigger army slowly pushing Ukraine’s forces backward in the eastern Donetsk region. A State Department official said that the U.S. plans to cancel half of Ukraine’s debt to the country. Meanwhile, the U.S. and some other Western countries temporarily closed their Kyiv embassies on Wednesday in response to the threat of a major Russian aerial attack.