The Government of Joe Biden has decided to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, according to the Associated Press agency, citing sources familiar with the decision. The United States is expected to announce this Friday that it will send thousands of them as part of a new military aid package worth up to 800 million dollars (734 million euros) for the war effort against Russia. The Pentagon did not want to confirm or deny the information this Thursday. Cluster bombs are controversial, considered especially cruel, and are prohibited by more than a hundred signatory countries to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, including Russia, Ukraine, and the United States.
These bombs, also called fragmentation bombs, are air-dropped or fired from the ground and scatter multiple submunitions or “little bombs” indiscriminately over an area that could cover the size of a football field. They are meant to sow destruction on multiple targets at once. Russia already uses it in the war with Ukraine.
The problem is that this makes the attacks somewhat more indiscriminate and puts potential civilian victims at risk, especially since some of the bombs often go unexploded immediately and represent a danger to the population that can last for decades.
The sources cited by the AP, however, point out that the munitions that the United States will provide to Ukraine have a low “failure rate,” meaning that there will be far fewer unexploded munitions that could cause unintentional civilian deaths.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some cluster bombs have a high percentage of bomblets that do not explode, up to 40% in some cases. US officials cited by AP said Thursday that the percentage of unexploded submunitions in the bombs that will go to Ukraine is less than 3% and, therefore, they will pose fewer threats to the civilian population.
Because of their shape and bright colors, which can be reminiscent of a soda can or a ball, these bombs especially attract children who, as has been shown in other wars, pick them up on many occasions. According to the Cluster Munition Monitor, around 40% of cluster bomb victims worldwide are children. The impact of ammunition on children’s bodies can be devastating. Surgeons say that, at close range, a small bomb can rip off a child’s limbs, blind them or fracture bones. From further away, the fragments can become embedded in the body, usually in the muscles.
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Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday at a Defense Department press conference that if a decision were made to supply the cluster bombs to Ukraine, the United States “would carefully select munitions with the lowest rates of no detonation” and that they have “recent test data” in this regard.
Ryder, however, did not want to get out of the field of hypotheses entirely and indicated that he had nothing to announce about cluster munitions. But at the same time, he explained that the Department of Defense has “multiple variants” of the ammunition and that it is thinking of delivering them: “The ones we are considering supplying would not include older variants with (non-detonation) rates higher than 2.35% ”, he stated.
The Pentagon spokesman declined to clarify whether Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has contacted his NATO counterparts to address some of their concerns about the use of cluster munitions. Ryder has indicated that he is aware of reports that some munitions have higher non-detonation rates and the concerns that this raises. The general added that Russia has been using cluster munitions that have a very high failure rate.
The Ukrainian authorities have requested the weapons to help their campaign to advance through Russian troop lines and make progress in the ongoing counter-offensive. Russian forces are already using cluster munitions on the battlefield and in populated civilian areas, senior US officials have said.
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