The Ukrainians welcome the US decision to supply them with cluster munitions, believing that weakening Russian resistance in the current counteroffensive and saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians outweighs the potential risks.
The overwhelming danger to the Ukrainians comes from Russian attacks both on the front line and against areas further away, such as the missile attack that claimed ten lives in Lviv on the 6th, as well as from their actions in the territories busy, commentators of the Ukrainian media and social networks widely agree.
The main idea is that the sooner and more effectively the invasion is repelled, the lower the loss of life among both civilians and soldiers, hundreds of thousands of whom donned military uniform for the first time after being drafted or volunteering to fight.
Cluster munitions are just one way to help achieve this, as Ukraine also urgently needs long-range ATACMS missiles, Oleksi Melnik, a military expert at the Razumkov Center think tank, told EFE.
Although cluster munitions can be dangerous with around 2% failing to explode and posing long-term risks, the risks diminish in importance when compared to other weapons used in Ukraine, with up to 30% of projectiles some cases do not explode, the expert explained. “Meanwhile, cluster munitions are a very efficient tool that could compensate, at least in part, for Russia’s air superiority,” Melnik stressed.
As Ukraine tries to attack the well-prepared Russian defenses to liberate its occupied territories, it is with artillery shells that it tries to compensate for its very limited ability to support the counter-offensive from the air, in the absence of modern combat aircraft.
Given the inability of Ukraine and its partners to quickly increase the production of artillery shells to meet the demands of its army, the supply of stored cluster munitions will at least partly offset the ammunition shortfall, Melnik explained.
According to former soldier and expert Yevgen Dikyi, cluster munitions will be particularly useful targeting armored vehicles, which Russia customarily sends ahead to recapture lost positions whenever attacking Ukrainian troops break through the first line of defense.
“While several projectiles are currently needed to hit a moving target like this, the use of cluster munitions, which cover a much larger area by breaking up into around 10 smaller bombs, will make it much easier,” he said in a statement. to Ukrainian television Channel 24.
Military analyst Mikola Bielieskov called the arguments of those who oppose the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine “preposterous”. In his opinion, without them, Ukraine’s chances of success would be less, as would the likelihood of enforcing the “truly fundamental” principles of the UN Charter, which have been threatened by the Russian invasion.
Ukraine ordered cluster munitions as early as December and all the pros and cons of their possible use had been “duly assessed”, Bielieskov stressed. “Do not question the Ukrainian government’s ability to make sound judgment and its legitimacy to ask for what it sees fit for self-defense,” he wrote on Twitter.
Bielieskov, along with other commentators, thus dismissed fears expressed, among others, by Human Rights Watch and government representatives including Spain, Germany and the UK, that the use of cluster munitions would pose too high a risk to Ukrainian civilians.
Several commentators have also noted Russia’s well-documented use of cluster munitions during the invasion, particularly in the shelling of residential areas in Kharkiv and Mikolayiv.
Since both Ukraine and Russia are not signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans their use, leaving Ukraine without cluster munitions would only make it less able to protect itself, Bielieskov and other experts say.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksi Reznikov also assured on the 7th that Ukraine will not use cluster munitions in urban areas, but would only use it to break through Russian defenses and liberate its own occupied territories, and not to attack Russian territory. .
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