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US President Joe Biden’s administration has approved sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, weapons known to cause serious injury to civilians and prohibited by a 2008 UN Convention, a treaty that was signed by more than 100 countries (among which, however, there are not the United States, Ukraine and Russia). This was announced on Friday afternoon during a press conference by the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who added that more details will be provided later by the Department of Defense.
In the ongoing war, Ukraine has repeatedly used its own cluster bombs, as has Russia, but for at least six months he asked that the United States provide additional supplies to counter the Russian invasion. According to what Ukrainian government officials told several anonymous newspapers, cluster bombs are needed to speed up the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the east of the country, which began a month ago and is going slowly, but their use is very disputed.
The cluster bombs (in English call cluster bombs) have been used since the Second World War and are containers that carry tens to hundreds of smaller bombs, also known as “submunitions”. They can be dropped from an aircraft or launched from land or sea. When they reach a pre-established height, depending on the affected area which can be as wide as several football fields, they open and the bombs inside are distributed, “in clusters”, over the area below. There are various types of submunitions but almost all are designed to explode on impact and the most common contain shrapnel designed to kill people or destroy armored vehicles such as tanks.
However, 94 percent of recorded cluster bomb victims are civilians, nearly 40 percent of whom are children. In fact, once the container is opened, the submunitions fall over a very large area and, although some types have sensors that direct them towards targets, they disperse quite indiscriminately, often affecting the civilian population. Furthermore, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, between 10 percent and 40 percent of submunitions do not explode once they hit the ground, and it is not uncommon for them to explode many years later due to civilian handling.
Cluster bombs have been used in more than thirty conflicts, including the US invasion of Iraq. In a relationship published on the use of cluster munitions in the war in Ukraine this week, the NGO Human Rights Watch said that “in any case, the use of cluster munitions in areas with civilian presence is a violation of international humanitarian law, and potentially a war crime.
Most members of the Biden administration, including Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, are OK with sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, but this choice is quite unpopular within the Democratic Party (the of President Biden), and clearly distances the United States from its main allies: in fact, the use, storage and transfer of cluster bombs are prohibited by the United Nations Convention on Cluster Munitions of 2008, which has been signed by over 100 countries.
The United States, Ukraine and Russia – which makes heavy use of these weapons – are among the more than 70 countries that have not signed up, arguing that there are circumstances in which the weapons must be used, despite the potential for civilian casualties. This decision comes a week before the summit of NATO, the military alliance that includes the majority of Western countries, to be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, where the issue is expected to be raised by countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France, who were among the first signatories of the Convention. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg he has declared that on cluster bombs “NATO will not make a decision” and that “it will be up to individual governments to decide on the matter”. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock he already said that Germany will not follow the example of the United States, but did not criticize the choice.
According to some US officials they have spoke with the New York Times anonymously, Biden was persuaded after the Defense Department claimed it would supply Ukraine with an “improved” version of the weapon, which has an estimated 2 percent chance of not detonating.
By comparison, the cluster bombs used by Russia in Ukraine have a more than 40 percent chance of not exploding, according to officials. However, many experts have told the New York Times to believe that the failure rate of U.S. munitions would actually be much higher than Defense Department estimates, especially in the case of landing in water, or on soft ground such as plowed fields and muddy areas. However, this supply of cluster bombs should be an exception, which will help the Ukrainian military until it is possible to increase the production of conventional munitions, which will probably happen by spring next year.