US-supplied cluster munitions have arrived in Ukraine, US and Ukrainian officials said, a week after President Biden announced he had manufactured them “Very difficult decision” To supply Kiev with the widely banned weapon.
Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II, the chief of operations for the military’s Joint Staff in Washington, confirmed in a Pentagon briefing It was announced on Thursday that the cluster munitions, which shatter in mid-air and release deadly bombs over a wide area, were delivered to Ukraine. Brig. General Oleksandr Tarnavsky of the Ukrainian military said in an interview with CNN that the weapons could “radically change” the situation on the battlefield. He said the guns had not been used as of Thursday.
More than 100 countries – including many US allies – have banned the use of cluster munitions because of the danger they pose to civilians. The guns often do not detonate immediately and can kill adults and children who come across them years or even decades later. Russia, Ukraine and the United States have not signed an international agreement prohibiting their storage or use.
The Pentagon declined to provide details on the number of weapons being provided or the delivery timeline, but said Ukraine’s leadership had assured the United States that they would not be used near civilian populations.
Russia this week responded to the US decision by saying it would answer by using arms in war itself. The extensive use of cluster munitions by Moscow forces in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion is already well documented.
“Russia constantly uses cluster munitions on our territory, fights exclusively on our land, kills our people and has been using cluster munitions for many years,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called at the NATO summit this week in Lithuania. He promised that his country’s armed forces would use them “solely for military purposes and solely for use in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.”
The Biden administration has long refused to supply arms to Ukraine because Western allies resisted — and within his own party – that doing so would harm US efforts to claim moral superiority. But last week, Mr. Biden and government officials said the guns were necessary as Ukraine runs out of ammunition and its counteroffensive comes up against dug-in Russian defenses.
Opponents of the use of cluster munitions argue that the longer-term risk to civilians – which often persists long after hostilities have ended – outweighs the short-term strategic benefits.
The White House announcement that it would supply cluster munitions to Ukraine followed assurances from Pentagon officials that the weapons had been improved to minimize the risk to civilians.
The Pentagon said the weapons it would send to Ukraine had a failure rate of 2.35 percent or less, much better than the usual rate. But the Pentagon Own statements indicate that that the cluster munitions in question contain older shells known to have a failure rate of 14 percent or more.
A proposal by some conservative Republicans — who had allied with the Democrats — was tabled Thursday night that would have banned the government from sending cluster munitions into Ukraine failed in the House of Representatives.
