US to Supply Internationally Banned Cluster Munitions to Ukraine

By Staff, Agencies

The US will send cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of a new military aid package, national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed on Friday, following months of debate within the Biden administration about whether to provide Kiev with the controversial weapons banned by over 100 countries, including key US allies.

“I’m not going to stand up here and say it is easy,” Sullivan told reporters. “It’s a difficult decision. It’s a decision we deferred. It’s a decision that required a real hard look at the potential harm to civilians. And when we put all of that together, there was a unanimous recommendation from the national security team, and President [Joe] Biden ultimately decided, in consultation with allies and partners and in consultation with members of Congress, to move forward on this strategy.”

Biden approved the transfer of the munitions this week, officials told CNN. CNN first reported last week that the administration was strongly considering the move, as Ukrainians forces have struggled to make major gains in their counteroffensive against Russia.

Throughout the conflict, the US has, in the face of intense lobbying, gradually agreed to Kiev’s requests for more aggressive weaponry, including Patriot Missile systems and modern tanks. But the decision to send cluster munitions marks a watershed moment with the Biden administration agreeing to send a weapon that most countries have agreed should have no place in modern warfare.

Biden said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Friday that it was a “difficult decision” to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions for the first time but that he was ultimately convinced to send the controversial weapons because Kiev needs ammunition in its counteroffensive against Russia.

“It was a very difficult decision on my part. And by the way, I discussed this with our allies, I discussed this with our friends up on the Hill,” Biden said, adding, “The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition.”

The munitions will be compatible with the US-provided 155 mm howitzers, a key piece of artillery that has allowed Ukraine to win back territory over the past year, according to the Pentagon. In a statement announcing a new round of aid to Ukraine, the War Department said the US will be providing “155mm artillery rounds, including DPICM,” or Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions – the type of cluster munition the US currently has in its stockpiles.

Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters on Friday that Ukraine gave “assurances in writing” that it would not use the cluster munitions in urban areas “that are populated by civilians, and that there would be a careful accounting of where they use these weapons.”

Cluster munitions scatter “bomblets” across large areas that can fail to explode on impact and can pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines. Over 100 countries, including the UK, France and Germany, have outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US and Ukraine are not signatories to the ban.

German defense minister Boris Pistorias said Friday that providing the munitions to Ukraine is “not an option” for Berlin because it is a signatory to the convention. But he declined to weigh in on the US decision to do so. “Those countries that have not signed the convention – China, Russia, Ukraine and the US – it is not up to me to comment on their actions.”

Human rights advocates have condemned the move. Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday that “transferring these weapons would inevitably cause long-term suffering for civilians and undermine the international opprobrium of their use.”

Biden will overrule statutory restrictions imposed by Congress on exporting munitions with a greater than 1% “dud” rate – the munitions the US is set to provide may have a dud rate of up to 2.35%, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Thursday. Biden will invoke Section 614 of the Foreign Assistance Act to waive those restrictions, a defense official said, which allows the president to provide foreign aid regardless of export restrictions if it is in the national security interest of the United States.

The dud rate refers to how often the bomblets the munition scatters across a large area fail to explode, posing a long-term risk to civilians who may encounter them later. A higher dud rate means more of the scattered bomblets will fail to explode on impact. Ryder said the Russians have been using cluster munitions with a dud rate as high as 40%.

Kahl reiterated Friday that the Pentagon would not be providing munitions with a dud rate over 2.35%, a rate which was "demonstrated through five comprehensive tests" conducted by the US War Department between 1998 and 2020.”

Ukrainian officials have been pushing the US to provide the munitions since last year, arguing that they would provide more ammunition for Western-provided artillery and rocket systems, and help narrow Russia’s numerical superiority in artillery.