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Friday, 7 July 2023 at 20:43, United Kingdom
President Biden agreed to supply Ukraine with controversial cluster munitions for use against Russian forces.
The weapon detonates in the air, releasing smaller “bombs” that spread over a large area.
Opponents say they kill indiscriminately and that some smaller munitions may fail to detonate, posing long-term risks to civilians.
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U.S. officials said it would offer cluster bombs with a low “dud rate” to minimize risk.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Carr said it would only offer products with a failure rate of less than 2.35%.
He said “hundreds of thousands” might be offered, but declined to say how many would initially be offered.
Mr Carr said Russia had been using older cluster munitions since the start of the war, with a dud rate of 30-40 per cent.
Ukraine is said to have pledged in writing not to use them in populated environments, has mapped where they will be used, and is working on post-war cleanup.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jack Sullivan, said the U.S. delayed the decision “as long as possible” because of the risks to civilians.
But he added that “there is also a significant risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks move past Ukrainian positions and occupy more Ukrainian territory” because Russia does not have enough artillery.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO took no position on the issue and “then it’s up to the individual allies to make those decisions”.
However, the United Nations has urged both sides not to use them.
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“The use of such munitions should cease immediately and must not be used anywhere,” said Marta Hurtado, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said cluster munitions “caused a large number of avoidable civilian casualties”.
More than 120 countries have signed the convention banning the use and manufacture of cluster bombs, but the United States, Russia and Ukraine have not.
Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, is among those who support the use of such weapons.
She said troops would already have to disable landmines as they retake territory and could capture any unexploded bombs as part of that.
“We have to clear the mines anyway, but it would be nice to have the capability,” she said.
Sky defense analyst Sean Bell said Ukraine had to make a judgment call on the “benefits of these weapons (they could provide a decisive capability in this war) and the risk they would inherit of having to clean them up.”
The last time the United States used the weapon on a large scale was in Iraq in 2003.
However, Human Rights Watch estimates that the US-led coalition also used 1,500 cluster bombs in the first three years of the war in Afghanistan.
The cluster bomb shipment to Ukraine was part of another shipment of weapons and artillery that the United States said brought its total weapons contribution to $41.3 billion.
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