By Imran Khalid
Finland destroyed a million anti-personnel mines a decade ago and now plans to buy a million more, turning a treaty donor into a buyer.
Finland took just over three years to destroy 1,013,571 anti-personnel mines. Its army now wants a million new ones. Imran Khalid argues that the Ottawa treaty is losing less to the states that never signed it than to the donors that once funded it. Finland’s order builds a supply base, pulls a funder toward procurement and hands holdout governments a precedent.
Key Takeaways
- Finland plans to buy one million anti-personnel mines for about €100 million.
- Five European states parties have left the Mine Ban Treaty. Poland plans up to 14.7 million mines.
- Mine casualties reached 6,279 in 2024, the highest since 2020.
- An export ban, a public stockpile count and a matching clearance pledge would keep Finland’s purchase a wartime tool.
What Has Finland Actually Ordered?
Colonel Riku Mikkonen of the Army Command told STT that around €100 million has been earmarked for one million mines and that about half a dozen Finnish companies can make them. The first should arrive in 2027, with domestic production from 2028. That is about €100 a mine. Cheapness is the weapon’s appeal. It is also why most of the world banned it.
Finland’s delegation told the treaty’s 2015 meeting in Geneva that it had destroyed “well over 1 million mines,” almost a year before its deadline. In November 2023, Antti Vaaras, Finland’s minister-counsellor, told the same forum that Finland condemned the use of anti-personnel mines “anywhere, anytime, and by any actor.” He said it in the session on cooperation and assistance, where the treaty turns richer members into the paymasters of clearance.
Why Is This More Than a Russia Story?
Finland guards a 1,340-kilometre border with Russia, which never joined the treaty and has used mines heavily in Ukraine since 2022. All accurate. It misses what is new.
The treaty did not lose this round to Moscow or Naypyidaw. It lost to its own members. Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have all walked out, rebuilding a market the convention spent 27 years closing. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines estimates that Poland’s planned 14.7 million mines could make it one of the world’s largest stockpilers. This month it urged the UN Secretary-General to press Warsaw and Helsinki to stop, warning that output could leak into exports. The warning is right. It stops at the factory gate.
The field data were already moving the wrong way. Landmine Monitor 2025 counted 6,279 people killed or injured by mines and explosive remnants of war in 2024; 90 percent were civilians. Casualties from factory-made anti-personnel mines, the category Finland is ordering, tripled since 2020 to 1,540.
What Changes When a Donor Becomes a Buyer?
First, supply. In February, Mikkonen conceded that the ban had left too few sellers abroad to meet Finland’s needs. Helsinki’s answer is a domestic base that can surge output in an emergency. Factories do not retire when threats do. A line built for one customer goes looking for a second.
Second, money. The United States gave $309.8 million to mine action in 2023, 39 percent of all international support. In January 2025 Washington froze foreign aid, clearance included. Norwegian People’s Aid lost more than 40 percent of its mine-action budget overnight and laid off 1,700 staff. Deminers in Cambodia, Yemen and Afghanistan need donors like Finland to fill that hole, and the Monitor already reports allocations shifting to defence. The largest donor has frozen. A smaller one is shopping.
Why Will Holdout Governments Cite Helsinki?
Third, cover. Governments outside the treaty have long made Finland’s case: a long border, a larger hostile neighbour, a conscript army that needs cheap area denial. India has abstained on every UN resolution backing the treaty since 1997 and argues that states with long borders still need mines. For nearly three decades the treaty’s champions answered that no border justified a weapon that cannot tell a soldier from a shepherd.
Helsinki has conceded that point on the record. The next government to mine a disputed frontier will cite a precedent written in Finnish.
Ukraine is a different case. Kyiv suspended the treaty in July 2025 while fighting off an invasion. Ukraine is under bombardment, making a wartime choice. Finland is at peace, building a peacetime industry. That difference is the argument.
Exhibit 1: Three exits from the Mine Ban Treaty
Finland
- Legal step: Withdrawal, in force 10 January 2026
- Situation: At peace; 1,340 km border with Russia
- Mine plans: About 1 million mines for about €100 million; production from 2028
Poland
- Legal step: Withdrawal notified 20 August 2025, in force 2026
- Situation: At peace
- Mine plans: Up to 14.7 million mines (ICBL estimate)
Ukraine
- Legal step: “Suspension” notified July 2025; Article 20(3) bars withdrawal during armed conflict
- Situation: Under full-scale invasion since February 2022
- Mine plans: Indications of new use in 2024–25; received US mines in late 2024
Sources: Landmine Monitor 2025; UN depositary notifications; Mine Ban Convention Implementation Support Unit; Yle/STT; ICBL; Lieber Institute, West Point.
Does Helsinki Have a Fair Answer?
When parliament approved the exit, the Defence Ministry said Finland would lay mines only under military attack, record every field on maps, clear them when necessary and ensure that “only aggressor soldiers are at risk.” Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen said the weapons could save Finnish reservists’ lives.
Finland keeps better military records than most. Its answer misreads how mines behave once a front starts to move. Maps are drawn by the army that lays a field and lost by the army that retreats from it. At least 57 states and areas remain contaminated by anti-personnel mines. In Afghanistan, children made up 77 percent of casualties, and they did not step on mines laid last year.
What Limits Could Finland Legislate Now?
None of this means Finland should face Russia with its hands tied. The Eduskunta could pass three limits alongside the order:
- A ban on export licences for Finnish-made anti-personnel mines, so the new lines serve one customer.
- An annual public stockpile count in the Article 7 format.
- A €100 million clearance pledge over the same procurement window, matching the mine budget euro for euro.
Without such limits, Europe sends the Global South a short message: the ban was for you, not for us.
What Should Finland Bring to the Record?
The convention counted 166 members in December 2025. Five have left since. Before the remaining members next meet, Helsinki can decide what goes on the record beside its order: an export ban and a clearance pledge, or a procurement timetable alone. The first keeps its exit a narrow wartime exception. The second confirms that a treaty which once shamed great powers into restraint is being taken apart by the governments that used to pay for it.
About the Author
Imran Khalid is a geostrategic analyst and senior fellow at Foreign Policy In Focus (USA), and has written columns on international affairs since 2001. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Nikkei Asia, The Hill, The Diplomat, Al Jazeera, the South China Morning Post and The Japan Times.
