Ukrainian troops massively shelled the center of Donetsk with anti-personnel high-explosive mines "Petal".

This was announced in his Telegram channel by the mayor of the capital of the DPR Alexei Kulemzin.

According to him, the nationalists were aiming at densely populated areas of Donetsk.

“Be extremely careful.

Many mines have been found in the central districts of the city,” Kulemzin wrote, addressing local residents.

At the moment, anti-personnel explosive devices have been found in the park.

Leninsky Komsomol, in the village of Zhilkop, on the streets of Krasnaya Zarya, Yuzhnogornyatskaya, Gruzinskaya, Newspapers Komsomolets Donbassa, Universitetskaya, Lyubavina, Shchorsa, Znamenskaya, Elektrovoznaya, on Mira Avenue and in other locations.

Also, "petals" were found near a number of schools.

Due to the shelling of mines in the center of Donetsk, traffic was temporarily suspended along the tram route, which runs through the Voroshilovsky and Kyiv districts.

"Attention!

Mines can be scattered along other streets in the area!

Addresses are being specified.

In the grass and on the ground, these mines are almost invisible!

Be extremely careful!”

Kulemzin addressed the townspeople.

  • Mina "Petal" in Donetsk

The mayor of the city called on the residents of Donetsk to exercise maximum vigilance: do not leave their homes at night, do not walk on grass and foliage, and do not touch unfamiliar objects.

The photographs and video frames published by Kulemzin show that a large number of “petals” are randomly scattered on city streets, they are hardly distinguishable in the dark.

At the moment, two victims of the detonation of anti-personnel mines are known: a man born in 1980 and an EMERCOM worker born in 1986 were injured.

"Extremely dangerous mine"

"Petal" is a light anti-personnel mine PFM-1, which was mass-produced in the USSR.

It got its name because of the characteristic shape of the hull, which is a polyethylene balloon with a stabilized wing.

As experts explain, the Soviet Union developed and used the Petal mine solely for the purpose of incapacitating and demoralizing enemy infantry troops.

However, the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to deliberately use these munitions to terrorize the civilian population.

At the same time, as the mayor of Donetsk, Aleksey Kulemzin, said, by using “petals”, Kyiv violates the 1997 Ottawa Convention on the Ban of Anti-Personnel Mines, which Ukraine acceded to in January 2006.

  • Anti-personnel mine PFM-1 "Petal"

  • © Telegram channel of the head of Donetsk administration Alexey Kulemzin

The "petals" are small in size (length - 12 cm, width - 6.5 cm).

The mine has a brown or green color, so it is difficult to see it on the ground or in the grass.

The mass of the PFM-1 explosive is 40 g. This is not enough to kill, but the ammunition is able to tear off the foot of a person who steps on it or seriously damage the lower part of the leg.

"Petals" are not scattered manually.

As a rule, cluster-type aviation weapons are equipped with these mines.

Moreover, each such projectile can hold tens of mines.

“PFM-1 is designed in such a way that after being dropped it does not explode when it hits the ground.

It works in the future, and at the slightest push.

One part of the mine is filled with a liquid explosive, and the other is equipped with a mechanism that helps to scatter striking elements as far as possible from the warhead rupture site, ”explained military observer Alexander Khrolenko in a RT commentary.

The USSR used the PFM-1 quite widely during the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989).

The carriers of ammunition with "petals" were Su-25 attack aircraft.

Airplanes sowed with them areas of the area where the Mujahideen were in charge.

Thus, the Soviet army, without much difficulty, created minefields in areas controlled by the enemy.

In addition to aircraft projectiles, missiles of the Uragan multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) can also be filled with petal mines.

According to the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the Ceasefire Regime (JCCC) of the DPR, the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired precisely from the Hurricane, firing 9M27K3 rockets filled with two types of mine petals at the residential areas of the city.

The first modification is PFM-1S, an ammunition with a self-destruction mechanism after a certain period of time.

The second option is PFM-1, devoid of this device.

"Petal" is an extremely dangerous pressure-action anti-personnel mine.

The most insidious variant of the projectile currently being used by Ukrainian troops in the shelling of Donetsk is the PFM-1, which has no self-destruct mechanism.

Such “petals” can lie for years until they are stepped on,” Khrolenko said.

Population War

From the messages in Kulemzin’s Telegram channel, it follows that this is not the first time that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have used “petals”, but shelling with them has become more frequent recently.

On July 29, the mayor of Donetsk announced that in the past two days alone, sappers had destroyed more than 600 such mines.

In addition to Donetsk, at the end of July, the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired shells with “petals” at the settlements of Yasinovataya, Makeevka and Panteleymonovka.

Prior to this, Ukrainian troops used the PFM-1 in the Kharkiv direction and mined the abandoned territories with them.

  • Mina "Petal" in Donetsk

  • © Telegram channel of the head of Donetsk administration Alexey Kulemzin

Moreover, Ukrainian soldiers sometimes undermined themselves, stepping on their own anti-personnel mines.

In particular, such an incident was recorded by Russian servicemen from the “O” (“Brave”) group in early July: near Lisichansk, they found a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, whose foot was torn off after the detonation of the PFM-1.

However, US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Stanley Brown said on June 21 that Ukraine allegedly does not use landmines prohibited by international law, although Russian military personnel and militia found Ukrainian “petals” back in the spring.

At the moment, representatives of Washington and Kyiv do not comment on the use of PFM-1 against residents of Donetsk and other settlements of Donbass. 

In an interview with RT, Dmitry Litovkin, editor of the Independent Military Review newspaper, said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine may have significant stocks of petal mines.

“After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine was the second country in the post-Soviet space in terms of the number of various weapons, including PFM-1 anti-personnel mines.

At least, before the start of the special operation, she had simply unthinkable reserves of “petals,” the expert says.

There is no publicly available data on the number of these mines that were in warehouses before the start of the NWO.

However, from the materials on the UN website, it is known that by joining the Ottawa Convention, Kyiv had to destroy about 6 million “petals” and 700 thousand anti-personnel mines of other types.

“Apparently, Ukraine was not engaged in the disposal of Soviet stocks of “petals” and other anti-personnel mines.

She kept them and is now actively using them against civilians, ”Litovkin believes.  

Leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries, political scientist Alexander Dudchak also did not rule out that the Armed Forces of Ukraine could increase the number of shelling of Donbass using ammunition filled with “petals”.

The Petal against civilians is a vile and monstrous weapon.

Nothing can justify its use in Donetsk.

These shellings once again prove that today's Ukraine is a state that is waging a terrorist war on civilians and is ready to commit the most brutal war crimes, ”the expert said in a RT comment.

According to Dudchak, the use of the PFM-1 "Lepestok" is intended to sow panic among the civilians of Donbass and fits into the logic of the military operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which is to turn the abandoned territories into deserted and "scorched" lands.  

  • The consequences of the shelling of Donetsk from the Ukrainian MLRS

  • RIA News

  • © Sergey Averin

According to Dudchak, the “terrorist shelling” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will stop only after the allied forces move the front line away from Donetsk and other cities.

A similar point of view is shared by Alexander Khrolenko.

“Scattering “petals”, the Kyiv regime takes revenge on the civilian population, which abandoned the ideals of the Bandera ideology.

And I'm afraid that many more people will be crippled.

But I hope that our troops will soon push back the front line and these terrorist attacks will stop,” Khrolenko summed up.