Finland Buying a Million Landmines | Hacker News Reader

Finland Buying a Million Landmines

yle.fi

30 pointsvrganj46 comments

They have a lot of border with the newly energised Russia.

energized, interesting choice of words considering their recent power plant losses. Was this a pun?

Pun not intended. I was thinking of the general ramping up of Russian military activity including indirect attacks on NATO countries like the Leipzig drones.

Does "energized" imply increased threat of attack? From the country which failed to successfully invade Ukraine ... I don't get the logic behind that thinking.

Ukraine could well have been a different story without US support, and US support is no longer a given.

I hope you are right that there's no problem but Trump seems to be doing his best to help Russia win.

I assume that Russia invaded Ukraine with the intent to win the war within weeks or maybe a few months. It is a disaster for Russia. Even a full victory now would not be a outcome where one could expect that Russia would want to start direct war with NATO because they licked blood.

Trump is motivated by money, he's seen there's nothing left in The Ukraine for him.

Ukraine depends on weapons and ammunition shipments from the EU and US. Continued US support continues to be uncertain. The EU is set on continued support of Ukraine, but an attack on Finland or the Baltic countries might be a way to force EU countries to reroute many of these shipments to defending that new flank

The other angle is that Putin is in a precarious situation if he can't win in Ukraine. Too much has been invested, to many sacrifices made. And a lot of his political power depends on him looking strong. He could be looking for some way to find a quick victory somewhere else

I don't believe either of these are likely scenarios. But Putin is increasingly backed into the corner and has already proven that he will take risky bets on starting new wars. Every country bordering Russia is well-advised to make themselves look like a well-defended place where the Russian military would only be bogged down in another quagmire

> From the country which failed to successfully invade Ukraine

True, but that doesn't make the war itself any less significant.

The Americans are abandoning their post in the world, so the world is adjusting to get on without them. I think it’s probably a good thing long term that Europe grows to protect itself from Russian aggression without having to rely on the unreliable.

Europe as a whole has also failed to hit NATO defense spending targets, for at least a decade. Look at this article from 2016. https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/07/nato-spending-two-c...

At some point a partnership isn't a partnership if people don't participate.

Well, then it's time for the USA to pack it up from all bases in Europe and go back home, if it isn't a partnership there's no need to be loitering around for this long, no?

It's absolutely true that almost all of NATO was not doing their part and should have been. It's good that they're starting to. But the U.S. enjoyed and benefitted greatly from that command of soft power. The U.S. has now transitioned to being a transactional hegemon, which leads to the divestment of that power. This is dangerous for us all because Americans will either have to accept their lesser position in the world, or will double down on using violence and aggression to maintain their status. The latter is almost exclusively what we've been enduring over the past years.

> At some point a partnership isn't a partnership if people don't participate.

Similarly, at some point people should wonder what else might come out of a partnership aside from raw spending dollars and whether there is value there, instead of simply parroting stupid domestic bumper stickers as if they have value or add insight.

That may be true, but in the history of NATO how many countries have invoked Article 5, and which countries answered that call?

What does America failing have to do with geriatric Russia not posing a threat to anyone? Do you believe America has been keeping the lid on some seal and protecting people?

They plus NATO have played a part in restraining Russia from doing its expanding thing since WW2.

It's still #1 in nukes and close to the top in belligerence.

Do you believe the recent incursion into Ukraine was because of an expansionist goal on the part of Russia? Do you earnestly think Russia wants to control Europe politically?

Countries do not invade if they think they can increase their chance of success by waiting. They invade when they feel backed in a corner, when they're desperate, when they think an invasion will be harder next year than this.

That's the main consideration protecting Taiwan right now -- China thinks that their position relative to Taiwan/US will be better a decade from now. OTOH, a Putin/Russia that is losing their position is when they are most dangerous.

To me, a Ukrainian, it looks like Ruzzia had invaded Ukraine quite successfully and continues doing so. What exactly would prevent Ruzzian army from invading Finland if they would wish to do it? Say for example a battle group takes a Koitsanlahti city and stops there, the official explanation is that they are protecting some pink ponies... ahem... locals over there. Now what? Looks quite successful to me.

The theory is NATO article 5 would kick in and prevent that but given Trump's seeming loyalty to Moscow he'd probably be saying Finland shouldn't have started the war and will have to give up some land for peace, and France and Germany may elect pro Russian governments shortly.

Article 5

"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security."

Ok, all other members "assisted" Finland "as they deem necessary". No one sent armed forces, to prevent provoking friend Vlad or else... And why even bother, there is no fighting in Finland, Ruzzian force is standing guarding the city and is digging in. Why provoke Putin then if no one is getting hurt. Instead they are all collectively pressuring and blackmailing Finland to not counterattack.

If the current state if the Ukraine war is success from Russian perspective how would a failure look like?

I think Biden, the UK and others in Feb 2022 should have said to Putin that if he invades the air forces of those countries would take out the invading troops which probably would have resulted in it not happening at all, or maybe being repelled.

As it is it's kind of a mess with many dead on both sides.

Invasion was successful because they successfully moved their armies into Ukraine and they are still there. Invasion would fail if they didn't manage to do that.

Rational people still, in 2026, operate under a notion that Putin has some definitive target. Well, he does not, the invasion IS a target. The process is a target. So while the war goes on, the whole operation is a success to him personally.

Same with hypothetical NATO invasion. It's target won't be neither victory over the alliance, nor any gains in territory or cities. The point would be to create a permanent ongoing invasion(s) inside NATO member's borders and sustain it.

May I ask what does Putin win by having part of its army inside Ukraine, spending resources, and also, having Russian cities attacked in response? If you're going to say that it's his way to remain in power, it doesn't look he had trouble doing that prior to the invasion.

He has fun. It looks like that over past years war is the only thing which genuinely interests him. And his end goal by my guess, is producing a photo of him sitting next to Xi and Trump, titled "Yalta 2". That is literally all he cares about. This war will never end until he is alive. And given that he has a private hospital built-in in his residence and he had even dismantled street wires along his route to Kremlin to make helicopter evac possible at all points, he will live pretty darn long.

From previous articles about this, they won't be deployed now. They will be deployed if needed.

If you placed those mines just in case, would wildlife not trigger one from time to time? How long until they would be mostly gone? And how long do they survive in the wild until they become unreliable or dangerous to handle? How hard would it be to replace or remove them if no longer needed?

Depends on your mine. Some are now programed to explode after say three months to avoid the problem of them being a threat for a long time. A lot get laid just in time by drones rather than staying there for ages.

A certain percent will fail to detonate automatically, so the area will still be unsafe for decades (or longer). Same issue with cluster munitions and high intensity bombing.

Hopefully they are treating these as a quickly deployable defense of last resort and not deploying them in advance. Mines can be deployed by special artillery shells and drones, but generally they shouldn’t be, ever.

No point in deploying them in advance. Finland has proper winters and with the freezing/thawing cycle, the mines would end up god knows where. I myself once discovered an unexploded WWII aerial bomb that popped up out of nowhere one spring on a field that was in constant farming use.

Here in Colombia we still have a lot. I'd say the previous government would tell them they could take them out here for free and we would gave them a couple hippos as extra but with this current one I'd bet they would ask for them more money than if they were new.

I'm more interested in the economics here - is it realistic to produce a land mine for under 100 Euros if you include CapEx and your volume is 1 million units?

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