Finland will withdraw from the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines — this decision was made by the countryʼs parliament.
This is reported by the Finnish broadcaster Yle.
The majority of MPs — 157 people — voted to withdraw from the agreement. At the same time, 18 were against, and none abstained.
The Foreign Affairs Committee, which supported the governmentʼs proposal to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, said that mines are necessary for Finland in the face of the deteriorating security situation. The government promises to strongly support humanitarian mine action, such as demining in crisis areas.
The Ottawa Convention was signed by 164 countries in 1997. The participating states pledged never to use, develop, produce or transfer anti-personnel mines, and to destroy all their existing stockpiles.
Ukraine ratified it on December 27, 2005, becoming a state party on June 1, 2006. At the time of signing, Ukraine had the fifth largest arsenal of anti-personnel mines in the world, behind only China, Russia, the United States, and Pakistan. They, like India, have not joined the treaty.
- In March 2025, the defense ministers of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland recommended that their governments withdraw from the convention. They noted that the security situation in the region had “significantly deteriorated” and that military threats to NATO countries bordering Russia and Belarus had “significantly increased”.
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