Himars, combat tanks, long-range missiles and now, cluster munitions… The United States is preparing to supply Ukraine with these weapons banned by more than 100 countries because of their impact on populations civilians, the White House confirmed on Friday July 7, crossing an important threshold in the type of armaments offered to Kiev to defend itself against Russia.
“It’s a tough decision. We delayed it” for a while, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters, adding that it was “the right thing to do” to help Ukraine. in its counter-offensive against the Russian forces.
Jake Sullivan claimed President Joe Biden made the decision in consultation with allies and after a “unanimous recommendation” from his administration. The official further assured that the Ukrainians had provided guarantees “in writing” on the use they would make of these weapons to minimize “the risks posed to civilians”.
The announcement comes as part of a new $800 million military assistance package for Ukraine that brings total U.S. military assistance since the war began in February 2022 to over $41 billion. In addition to cluster munitions, the United States will provide armored vehicles, artillery munitions, anti-tank weapons and other equipment.
Cluster munitions contain multiple explosive charges released in clusters, unlike most missiles and bombs. Once the projectile has been fired, the ammunition container, which can be a rocket, a shell or even a missile, releases tens or even hundreds of explosives, the submunitions.
According to the Washington Post, the United States will provide 155 mm artillery shells, the M864, in service since 1987. These shells carry up to 29 kilometers of submunitions with double effects: anti-personnel and anti-tank. The American daily reports that “in its last estimate made public, more than twenty years ago, the Pentagon advanced that this artillery shell had a rate of “misfire” of 6%, which means that at least four of the 72 submunitions carried by the shell would remain unexploded in an area of ??approximately 22,500 square meters”.
During a briefing on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder clarified that the United States has several variants of DPICM (Dual-purpose improved conventional munition) shells. “The ones we plan to provide would not include older variants, which have a misfire rate of over 2.35%,” he said.
Ukraine, for its part, claims that the delivery of these weapons will allow it to at least partially fill its deficit in terms of artillery against Russia. The United States also assures that Russia uses such weapons as part of its invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022.
In 2006, a Senate briefing report explained that “disabling armored targets appears to be one of the favored applications of cluster munitions”, as was the case during the Cold War. According to the same report, “submunitions can be designed for a specific effect (destruction of armor or airstrips, for example) or for combined effects (for example antipersonnel and antimateriel)”.
But the use of these cluster munitions has sparked a wave of condemnations. Sending these weapons to Ukraine would be “escalatory, counterproductive and would only increase the danger for civilian populations caught in combat zones”, denounced Daryl Kimball, director of the American organization Arms Control Association in a statement. They “will not tell the difference between a Ukrainian soldier and a Russian soldier. The effectiveness of cluster bombs is vastly oversold and the impact on non-combatants is acknowledged but too often overlooked,” he added.
The US decision “is a step backwards that undermines the considerable advances of the international community in its attempt to protect civilians from such dangers during and after armed conflicts”, Amnesty International said, calling on Washington to reconsider. her decision.
For its part, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) recalls that cluster munitions are a violation of international humanitarian law. They do not distinguish a civilian target from a military target and the NGO sends the Russians and the Ukrainians back to back, accusing them of using these munitions against civilians: they act “like a landmine, constituting a threat for civilians for years, even decades,” HRW said.
If Washington can assume to transfer these weapons to Ukraine, it is because neither the United States, nor Ukraine or even Russia signed the Oslo Treaty of 2008, which entered into force in 2010, and which prohibits the production, stockpiling, sale and use of cluster munitions.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalls, moreover, that the largest holders and producers of cluster munitions refuse to adhere to the convention. These include India, Israel, Pakistan, China or South Korea. These countries “emphasize the military necessity of these weapons”, it is explained.
