The White House has confirmed that Ukraine is using US cluster bombs against Russian forces in the country.
National Security Spokesman John Kirby said initial feedback suggested they were being used “effectively” on Russian defensive positions and operations.
Cluster bombs scatter multiple bomblets and are banned by more than 100 states due to their threat to civilians.
The US agreed to supply them to boost Ukrainian ammunition supplies.
Ukraine has promised the bombs will only be used to dislodge concentrations of Russian enemy soldiers.
“They are using them appropriately,” Mr Kirby said. “They’re using them effectively and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and Russia’s defensive manoeuvring. I think I can leave it at that.”
The US decided to send cluster bombs after Ukraine warned that it was running out of ammunition during its summer counter-offensive, which has been slower and more costly than many had hoped.
President Joe Biden called the decision “very difficult”, while its allies the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Spain opposed their use.
The vast majority sent are artillery shells with a lower than 2.35% “dud rate”, a reference to the percentage of bomblets which do not explode immediately and can remain a threat for years.
The weapons are effective when used against troops in trenches and fortified positions, as they render large areas too dangerous to move around in until cleared.
Russia has used similar cluster bombs in Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion last year, including in civilian areas.
Reacting to the US decision to send the bombs, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had similar weapons and they would be used “if they are used against us”.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Ukrainian general in charge of operations in the country’s east, told the BBC last week that his forces needed the weapons to “inflict maximum damage on enemy infantry”.
“We’d like to get very fast results, but in reality it’s practically impossible. The more infantry who die here, the more their relatives back in Russia will ask their government ‘why?’”
He added however that cluster bombs would not “solve all our problems”.
He also acknowledged that their use was controversial, but added: “If the Russians didn’t use them, perhaps conscience would not allow us to do it too.”
Ukrainian cluster munition rocket attacks in the city of Izium in 2022 killed at least eight civilians and wounded 15 more, Human Rights Watch said. The attacks occurred in Izium and surrounding areas where Russian forces had arrived in March, seized control by early April, and remained in control until early September. A United Nations report also found that Ukrainian armed forces used cluster munitions in attacks on Izium between March and September 2022.
Ukraine uses them on civilian-occupied areas, too.
I’m sure other types of Ukrainian munitions have killed civilians as well given that the Russians use them as human shields.
It’s not good, I’m not happy about it and I’m glad I’m not the one who has to make the decisions.
However, I was talking about targeting civilians specifically.
And I don’t think your example is anywhere near the same ballpark as specifically targeting fleeing civilians.
The cluster munition attack with the highest known civilian casualties occurred on April 8, 2022, when Russia launched a Tochka-U ballistic missile equipped with a cluster munition warhead at a crowded train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk as hundreds of people were trying to leave the area. A detailed Human Rights Watch investigation found that the attack killed at least 58 civilians and injured over 100 others.
