US Cluster Munitions en route to Ukraine

The United States has finally decided today to provide strategically invaluable cluster munitions to Ukraine and is expected to announce tomorrow that the Pentagon will send thousands as part of a new military aid package worth up to $800 million to help Ukraine defend itself and even defeat Russia, according to the Associated Press and other news media.

The decision by the Biden Administration was revealed despite widespread concerns that the controversial bombs can cause civilian casualties. Ukrainian officials have been requesting these arms for months. The Pentagon said it will provide munitions that have a reduced “dud rate,” meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can result in unintended collateral damage.

US officials said Thursday, July 6, they expect greater package of military aid to Ukraine will be announced on Friday. The weapons will come from Pentagon stocks and will also include Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles and an array of ammunition, such as rounds for howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System – HIMARS that have been successful in striking russian positions, officials said.

Long sought by Ukraine, cluster bombs are weapons that open in the air, releasing submunitions, or “bomblets,” that are dispersed over a large area and are intended to wreak destruction on multiple targets at once. Ukrainian officials have asked for the weapons to aid in pushing through lines of russian troops and make gains in the ongoing counteroffensive. Russian forces are already using cluster munitions on the battlefield and in populated civilian areas, U.S. officials have said. And as is typical of moscow, it will deny that weapon to its enemy.

Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who has been advocating that Washington send more weapons, was quoted as saying that Ukrainian forces have had to disable mines from much of the territory they are winning back from Russia. As part of that process, Ukrainians will also be able to catch any unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions. “We will have to de-mine anyway, but it’s better to have this capability,” Ustinova said. She credited Congress for pushing the Administration over several months to change its position on the munitions.

It should be noted that many of these unexploded munitions pollute fields that are key in growing agricultural products for domestic and foreign consumption.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the move was long overdue. “Now is the time for the U.S. and its allies to provide Ukraine with the systems it needs from cluster munitions to F-16s to ATACMS in order to aid their critical counteroffensive. Any further delay will cost the lives of countless Ukrainians and prolong this brutal war,” said McCaul.

The Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, would give Ukraine the ability to strike russian targets from as far as about 180 miles (300 kilometers).

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the US has been thinking about providing the cluster munitions “for a long time.”

“The Ukrainians have asked for it, other European countries have provided some of that, the Russians are using it,” Milley said during a speech at the National Press Club.

Cluster bombs can be fired by artillery that the US has provided to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has a large stockpile of them.

The discussion of arbitrarily killing civilians or causing collateral damage by one ordinance or another is nonsense because russia has been using missiles, drones and conventional bombs that not only kill servicemen and women, but they’re also used against russia’s other feared military targets – ask the families of the four victims killed last night in Lviv or the 13 killed civilians, mostly young people, in a pizzeria in Kramatorsk.