The President of the United States, Joe Biden, approved the supply to Ukraine of the controversial cluster bombs in the Pentagon’s arsenal and should make an announcement about the decision later this Friday (7), according to information from the American press.
The decision, which circumvents the existing legal ban on the production, use and supply of this type of weapon, comes after organizations such as the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) asked Washington not to supply them.
the american newspaper The Washington Post highlighted that the move comes at a time when Ukrainians are suffering from a decrease in stockpiles of conventional artillery ammunition supplied by the West and increasing concern about the slowness of the Ukrainian counter-offensive against Russian troops.
According to HRW, both Ukrainian and Russian forces have been using cluster bombs, a type of ammunition that is banned by most countries.
Advisor to the Ukrainian presidential office, Mykhailo Podolyak, defended on Thursday (6) the supply of cluster bombs by the United States and stated that “human rights activists launch an aggressive lobbying campaign, not to expel Russia from the United States, but to attack Ukraine’s arms supply”.
In turn, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this Friday that it is up to each country that is part of the alliance, individually, to decide whether to deliver cluster bombs to Ukraine.
This type of device explodes in the air over a target, releasing dozens of smaller explosives over a wide area, many of which end up not detonating, which creates a safety problem for the civilian population in the long term.
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