Much wanted by Ukraine, cluster bombs are weapons that open in the air, releasing submunitions or warheads, which are scattered over a large area and are intended to cause the destruction of multiple targets at once.
US President Joe Biden officially approved the supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine on Friday.
The Pentagon is now expected to send thousands as part of a new military aid package worth up to 733 million euros for the war effort against Russia, according to people familiar with the decision and the American publication The Washington Post.
The announcement comes despite widespread concern that the bombs could cause civilian casualties and prompted calls from the United Nations for both Russia and Ukraine to avoid them. The Pentagon will provide munitions that have a reduced “miss rate,” meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can lead to unintended civilian deaths.
The weapons will come from Pentagon stockpiles and will also include Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles and a range of munitions, including rounds for howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS, officials said.
Officials and others familiar with the decision were not authorized to publicly discuss the move before the official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ukrainian officials had asked for the weapons to help their campaign to push through Russian troop lines and make gains in the ongoing counteroffensive. Russian forces are already using cluster munitions on the battlefield and in populated civilian areas, US officials have said.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some cluster munitions leave behind bombs, which have a high failure rate to explode, up to 40% in some cases. U.S. officials said Thursday that the unexploded ordnance rate for the munitions going to Ukraine is less than 3 percent and therefore will pose less of a threat to civilians.
How will NATO allies react?
It is unclear how America’s NATO allies would view the United States providing cluster bombs to Ukraine, and whether the issue could prove divisive given their largely united support for Kiev. More than two-thirds of the alliance’s 30 countries are signatories to the 2010 convention on cluster munitions.
Germany made clear on Friday that it will not supply any cluster munitions to Ukraine as it joined an international treaty banning the weapons more than a decade ago, but expressed its understanding of the US position.
“We are confident that our American friends did not take the decision to supply this ammunition lightly,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin. “We must remember once again that Russia has already used large-scale cluster munitions in its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
