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Russians claim Ukranian forces are dropping booby-trapped chocolate bars on Russian trenches.
(imgur.com)
"Found these in the Zaporizhzhya direction. The enemy is throwing chocolates with an explosive mechanism. Do not open them under any circumstances. Our guy was lucky that it did not detonate, otherwise he could have ended up crippled. I know guys whose fingers were torn off like that."
That does seem like something that would violate some rules-of-war convention.
Booby-trapping something that might be mistaken by civilians as a legitimate humanitarian aid drop risks non-combatant casualties and makes it harder for actual aid operations to operate.
Ah, this reminds the time when cluster munitions were bright yellow, so you could spot them and stay away.
And food aid packages were bright yellow, so you could spot them and easily collect them.
Yeah...
Oh man, when was that?
During the early occupation of Afghanistan after 2001. Here's a news article from 2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2912617.stm
Note that that wasn't on purpose.
Wow. I guess those two teams didn't talk often, which tracks.
Happy cake day!
Yup. I read the convention on mines recently in the wake of the pagers thing. Even if chocolate isn't humanitarian aid, portable booby trapped non-military items are forbidden if they self-trigger. (The pagers actually seem fine by the copy I read, because being remote-controlled makes them "other devices")
Edit: And also specifically food or drink.
SOURCES?
I've asked about 10 times, but no one can seem to provide a single reputable journalistic source. Is that really such a tall order? Follow facts, not feelings...
That's true! If it happened. Does anyone have any source at all for this from any reputable news organization?
It's an argument you could make, but there's already a convention against these specific types of weapon, even if you promise to be careful to clear them all when you're done.