'Meowing traps': How Ukraine's inventive defenses unsettle Russian forces
The war in Ukraine is full of surprising inventions. This category includes the so-called "meowing traps," which strongly affect human curiosity and empathy. Here's what they are.
Russian soldiers, in an interview with Russian television, complain extensively about Ukrainian "meowing traps." It is worth bearing in mind that much of this material is propagandistic. According to a Russian description, these traps are grenades or mines placed, for example, in nightstands on freshly captured territory, with a speaker playing recorded cat meows connected to them.
Cats are often rescued and adopted by soldiers on both sides of the conflict to serve, among other roles, as unit mascots, helping to alleviate some stress. Furthermore, cats are highly valued at the front for reducing the number of rodents in the trenches.
For this reason, many soldiers try to find and help a cat if they hear one, which some Ukrainians seem to exploit. The act of rigging items with explosives is not surprising in this war, as Russians have done the same when retreating from places like Bucha, where even children's toys were rigged with explosives.
Booby-trap mines — controversial weapons highly restricted by international law
Booby-trap mines are heavily regulated under Protocol II, added in 1996 to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons, which came into force in 1983. It is worth noting that both Russia and Ukraine not only signed but also ratified this convention.
However, the law and brutal reality are two different things, and many instances of convention or international humanitarian law violations can be seen in Ukraine. It's noteworthy that the Russians remain unmatched in these categories.
Booby-trap mines are improvised explosive devices based on grenades, anti-personnel mines, or homemade devices made from unexploded ordnance or explosive material and various metal scraps. The detonator is usually a simple pressure trigger or a stretched wire, whose tension causes an explosion. In the case of Ukrainians, a phone with a looped recording of cat meows is added, for instance.
Protocol II prohibits booby-trap mines that do not have a built-in self-destruct function after a specified time and their disguising as, among other things, children's toys, food, corpses, clothes, or kitchen equipment, except for military objects. Meeting just one condition is enough to consider it illegal.
