With a classic example of disinformatia, theRussian Embassy in Rome released photos of “Italian-made mines defused on Ukrainian territory”. In a nutshell, it’s like showing a photo of a kalashnikov and call it “Russian-made”. Like the famous machine gun, designed in the USSR and manufactured in dozens of countries, mines of that type were designed by Italian engineers and then built in many countries.
However, there are some fixed points. In compliance with the prohibition introduced by international agreements, the production of VS50 anti-personnel mines in Italy was completely stopped in 1997 and all Army stocks – amounting to over seven million specimens and made of green plastic – were destroyed. Five days ago, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Moscow Maria Zakharova he said Italy “is supplying Kiev with anti-personnel mines”. A false claim. Just as it is not possible that the bomb shown by the Russian embassy was delivered to Ukraine by our government. Where does it come from? Most likely from Singapore, which produced a copy of the identical model in sand colour, surely exported to Iraq. It is more difficult that it comes from Egyptian or Iranian factories, which have been assembling them for decades, always in desert-yellow plastic.
Weapons to Ukraine, assembled in a park those supplied by Italy
by Gianluca DiFeo
The photo used by the Russian embassy
The picture posted by the Russian embassy shows different types of mines. Only one – the VS50 – is “anti-personnel”: it is activated in a tenth of a second by a weight of ten kilos. It has a diameter of 4.5 centimeters and contains 75 grams of TNT, which rarely kills the victims but inflicts terrible mutilations. The other two are designed to destroy vehicles or tanks: they are activated by a weight of a few tons and are not prohibited by international treaties.
Francesco Vignarca, coordinator of campaigns in the new Italian Peace and Disarmament Network, also wrote on Twitter: “The photo of the Russian embassy in Italy with Italian mines hypothetically defused in Ukraine only demonstrates the ‘long’ impact of weapons (some in particular) , but it has nothing to do with recent military supplies, as pointed out by the Italian Campaign for the Banning of Mines and Guido Crosetto rightly underlines it”.
Stories of the last millennium
And there is no doubt that the anti-personnel devices designed by companies in our country, first of all Valsella Meccanotecnica in the province of Brescia, have sown death and pain on practically all continents. In fact, these are plastic booby traps, which escape metal detectors and which also work on the bottom of rivers and lakes. Terrible weapons, which have especially devastated the populations of Africa and the Middle East. Many continue to be discovered even in Afghanistan, where they were distributed by the Americans to guerrillas fighting against the Soviet occupation. And often – through the notorious triangulations – they have also been handed over in the past to regimes subject to embargo, such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Stories dating back to the last millennium, which have nothing to do with Italian support for the Ukrainian resistance.
Italian weapons in Ukraine
by Gianluca DiFeo
