How Did Polish Landmines End Up At An Ikea?
A major general in the Polish Army was relieved of his duties after the incident.
Swedish retailer Ikea is known for its “some assembly required” (and no shortage of frustration) furniture, home goods, and of course, meatballs. It doesn’t sell military hardware; however, a batch of anti-tank mines was apparently sent to an Ikea warehouse in Poland last year by mistake. The mines didn’t end up on a showroom floor next to shelves or couches, but the mix-up was enough that Warsaw sacked the head of the country’s logistics support system.
Major General Artur Kępczyński was relieved of his duties earlier this month, the Polish-based Onet news outlet first reported.
The news had also been posted via social media without further detail.
“We would like to inform you that on Jan. 9, 2025, by the decision of the Minister of Defense, the Head of the Support Inspectorate, Maj. Gen. Artur Kępczynski, was dismissed from his post,” the Polish Ministry of Defense announced in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
How TM-62M Mines Ended Up at Ikea
The type of anti-tank mine was described as the Soviet-designed TM-62M. According to data from the Collective Awareness To UXO (unexploded ordnance), it is a “High-Explosive-Blast (HE-Blast), large metal cased, Anti-Vehicle (AV), landmine which may be laid mechanically or by hand.”
Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has exported the mines to various countries including Armenia, Belarus, and North Korea, while it continued to be employed by NATO members such as Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland.
Approximately 240 of the mines, in 40 boxes—with around 1,000 tons of explosives—were being transported by train in June 2024, and weren’t properly unloaded. Instead, the shipment continued until the batch of ordnance was unloaded near the Ikea warehouse. The loss was not discovered until an Ikea worker called the Ministry of Defense to ask, “When they would come to collect their mines,” but whether those were the exact words remains unclear—and may be an embellishment in the reporting, as the boxes may not have been marked with the words “anti-tank mines.”
Yet, what is known to be true is that Kępczyński is believed to have “concealed [the mishap] from his superiors,” Politico Europe reported. “On paper, false information about the number of mines was provided.”
Losses Will Happen—Sometimes Not By Accident
This incident serves as a reminder of a past U.S. military scandal involving caches of stolen ordnance and weapons. In 2018, a box of thirty armored-piercing grenades, which were believed to have been stolen from a train bound for Pennsylvania, was recovered in an Atlanta backyard; while an Associated Press investigation found that at least nineteen hundred U.S. military firearms had been lost or stolen during the 2010s, and some of those weapons were used in violent crimes.
In addition, a Marine Corps demolition specialist, who was allegedly worried about the future of the United States and potential civil war, so “block by block, he stole 13 pounds (6 kilograms) of C4 plastic explosives from training ranges of Camp Lejeune,” the AP reported.
Then, of course, there are the nukes that have gone missing over the years.
During the Cold War, there were 32 nuclear weapons accidents—known as Broken Arrows—and since 1950, six nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered. Perhaps a look at Ikea is in order!
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
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