Current Affairs

UPSC BUTTERFLY MINE - English

BUTTERFLY MINE

Why in News?

The UK Ministry of Defence, in its intelligence assessment of the ongoing war in Ukraine, has sounded an alarm on the possible use of PFM-1 series ‘Butterfly Mines’ by the Russian military in Donetsk and Kramatorsk.

• It is a very sensitive anti-personnel landmine.
• An applied force of 5 kg is enough to detonate the mine.
• It is extremely dangerous, even for small children.
• The major difference between PFM-1 & PFM-1S is that the latter one comes with a self-destruction mechanism which gets activated within one to 40 hours.
• They can be dropped from helicopters or through ballistic dispersion using artillery and mortar shells.
• They glide to the ground without exploding and later explode on coming in contact.
• These mines are difficult to detect because they are made of plastic and can evade metal detectors.
• They are moulded in polyethene plastic and have two wings, one of which is heavier than the other.
• The thicker wing is the pressure activation for the main fuse which is contained in the central body.
• The thinner wing acts as a stabiliser for the mine when it is air-dropped, thus giving it the name ‘butterfly’.
• The anti-personal mines are banned by international convention on land mines but Russia and Ukraine are not signatories to it.
• There is a 1996 Amended Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons-the Landmines Protocol to which Russia and Ukraine are signatories.

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