The Case for Providing Ukraine With Cluster Bombs
"[Moscow has a] sufficient stockpile [of cluster munitions, and Russia] reserves the right to take reciprocal action [if Ukraine uses the controversial weapons].""Until now, we have not done this, [used cluster bombs], we have not used it, and we have not had such a need.""All attempts by the enemy to break through our defenses ... they were unsuccessful during the entire offensive. The enemy is having no success!"Russian President Vladimir PutinCluster munitions are more effective than unitary artillery shells because they inflict damage over a wider area.""This is important for Ukraine as they try to clear heavily fortified Russian positions."Ryan Brobst, research analyst, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a forum on Thursday in Moscow. Contributor/Getty Images |
Vladimir
Putin's boast of his troops holding off the Ukrainian counteroffensive
may be a morale-booster for his home audience, but Ukraine has more
strategic surprises for the Russian invader than confining itself to
slowly but surely shoving back the Russian military, while retaking its
own geography from the clutches of Russia.
Take,
for example, the latest sign that Ukraine is not running out of bold
action elsewhere. The Kerch Bridge, linking the annexed Crimean
Peninsula to Russia is once again out of commission. Close to 12 miles
in length, the bridge represents an artery critical to the supply of
Crimea with its daily needs along with supplies for the Russian
military.
Apart
from the symbolism of skillful guerilla action by Ukrainian actors
infiltrating the Russian military and its intelligence arm in planned
moves of sabotage, aptly demonstrating Ukrainian resolve to retain its
territory intact, and to recapture the illegally annexed territories
that Moscow now claims as its own, the Kerch Bridge stoppage strikes
another humiliating blow to a conquest-driven regime dreaming of its
past glories, entrapping its former satrapies into the past.
The
controversial decision of the United States to open the floodgates of
cluster bomb usage has not sat well with its allies. All of whom have
provided Ukraine with the munitions it has desperately needed to counter
the Russian juggernaut from completing its plans of destroying Ukraine
and absorbing its territories into Greater Russia. Most countries were
signatories to an anti-cluster-bomb campaign to end their use,
condemning them as an after-conflict threat to civilian life and limb by
unexploded ordnance.
Cluster
munitions have in the past been unreliable for the purpose for which
they were designed; many failing to explode in midair as designed,
falling to the ground below and posing a threat to non-combatants for
years to come; making farmland too dangerous to cultivate, and
destroying the lives of the unwary. Designed to open while airborne, and
release smaller 'bomblets' across a wide area, they are anti-personnel
munitions meant to destroy and to maim and to kill.
Their
purpose is to destroy tanks and equipment, along with troops; their
capabilities are meant, when they work, to hit multiple targets
simultaneously. The U.S. and allies have already provided the artillery
weapons that can also launch cluster bombs, similar to a common 155 mm
shell in wide use across the battlefield. Russia, despite Mr. Putin's
claims they have not yet been used by his military, has on occasion,
made use of cluster bombs. Some Iranian drones are known to explode with
multiple bombs.
Groups
such as Human Rights Watch have verified Russian use of cluster bombs,
hitting close to a preschool in the city of Okhtyrka. The intelligence
group Bellingcat stated that its researchers had found cluster munitions
in that strike along with multiple cluster attacks in Kharkiv, the
second-largest city in Ukraine's northeast. A Russian missile and drone
barrage hit a number of urban areas in Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk.
Russian forces attacked Kostiantynivka with S-300 missiles and cluster
munitions.
Russian rockets launched against Ukraine from Belgorod region, Russia, July 16, 2023. Vadim Belikov, Associated Press |
Thousands
of small unexploded bomblets remain behind with the high failure rate
of the cluster bombs in the past. They were last used by the U.S. in
Iraq in 2003 until the conflict moved to more urban settings with their
denser civilian populations. The US. Defence Department, according to
Brig.-Gen.Pat Ryder, has "multiple variants" of the munitions; those "that we are considering providing would not include older variants with (unexploding) rates higher than 2.35 percent".
The
U.S. has sent over two million 155 mm rounds to Ukraine with hundreds
of thousands more provided by other global allies. Ukrainian ground
troops aiming to hit enemy targets from a distance are burning through
thousands of rounds a day of the 155 mm rounds capable of striking
targets 24 to 32 kilometers in distance. At a German Marshall Fund event
a member of Ukraine's parliament said that Kyiv would require firing
7,000 to 9,000 of the rounds daily in intense counterterrorism offensive
fighting; substantially pressuring the ability of the US and allies to
further deplete their own stocks.
This
is what makes the cluster bombs such an attractive alternative for the
U.S. which has huge amounts of the munitions in storage. Their use would
enable Ukraine to destroy more targets with fewer rounds. A Frontline and AP database named War Crimes Watch Ukraine has catalogued Russia's use of cluster bombs in its destroy-Ukraine campaign.
A man pays his respects to the Ukrainians killed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, July 15, 2023. Jae C. Hong/AP |
Labels: Cluster Bombs, Munitions to Ukraine, NATO, Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian Counteroffensive, United States
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