Direct proof of use
Human Rights Watch documented two PMN-4 antipersonnel blast mines cleared from a road near Malyy Vystorop in Sumy Oblast on April 12, 2022. The briefing described PMN-4 as a Russian post-Soviet mine that Ukraine had not stockpiled, and placed the find among Russian mine use after the February 24, 2022 full-scale invasion.
Amnesty International later documented PMN-2 antipersonnel mines in Bezimenne, Kherson Oblast, after Russian occupation and fighting. Its researchers visited in May 2024, described Russian forces leaving the village encircled with anti-vehicle and antipersonnel mines, and reported PMN-2 mines scattered among houses and buildings, including at the site of a March 2024 civilian injury.
Sources: HRW Background Briefing on Landmine Use in Ukraine, Amnesty Occupied Residential Areas
Timeline
The dated public record begins in April 2022, when Ukrainian police reportedly located and cleared two PMN-4 mines near Malyy Vystorop in Sumy Oblast. That incident gives the PMN-4 branch a specific location and date in the full-scale phase of the war.
The Bezimenne evidence spans the period after Russian forces left parts of Kherson Oblast in September 2022 and before Amnesty's May 2024 site visit. Amnesty tied PMN-2 mines to abandoned residential areas and to deminer accounts of mines laid between the village's main road and its former medical and first-aid center.
Sources: HRW Background Briefing on Landmine Use in Ukraine, Amnesty Occupied Residential Areas
Battlefield role
In the Ukraine record, the PMN-1/2/4 entry is supported as a pressure-activated antipersonnel blast mine family used for area denial and residual ground hazard, not as a remotely fired strike weapon. The Monitor's Russia mine-ban profile lists PMN-2 and PMN-4 among antipersonnel mines used in Ukraine by Russian forces since February 2022, describing PMN-2 as a circular plastic-cased pressure mine and PMN-4 as a modern Russian circular plastic-cased pressure mine.
The sources separate direct use from broader mine-contamination context. HRW gives a dated PMN-4 clearance incident in Sumy Oblast; Amnesty gives a PMN-2 residential-area contamination case in Bezimenne; and the Monitor supplies an independent conflict-wide listing for Russian PMN-2 and PMN-4 use. The available sources do not establish Ukrainian PMN-family use in this conflict.
Sources: Russian Federation Mine Ban Policy, HRW Background Briefing on Landmine Use in Ukraine, Amnesty Occupied Residential Areas
