Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that Russia has a “sufficient” supply of cluster munitions to use if Ukraine employs the controversial weapons.
The US has started shipping cluster bombs to Ukraine even though the weapons are notorious for killing and maiming civilians. US cluster munitions have already arrived in Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch has said both sides have used cluster bombs in the war, although Putin claimed Russia hasn’t.
“Russia has a sufficient reserve of various kinds of cluster munitions, various kinds. So far we have not done it, we have not used them, and we have not had such a need, despite a certain shortage in munitions at a certain point of time. But we didn’t do this,” he said. “But of course, if they are used against us, we reserve the right to tit-for-tat actions.”
Putin also noted that the White House said last year that the use of cluster bombs in Ukraine would be a potential war crime. “As for cluster munitions, the US administration itself through its staff gave its opinion on these munitions a while ago, when the use of cluster munitions was called a crime by the US administration itself. So, I think, this is how it should be treated,” he said.
The US is providing Ukraine cluster bombs in the form of 155mm artillery shells. The US provision of the weapons means that both sides might engage in heavy artillery battles.
Cluster bombs are so dangerous to civilians because they spread small submunitions, or bomblets, over large areas, and some don’t explode on impact, leaving a major hazard for civilians who could come across them years or decades later.
The US will provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells that are each packed with 72 bomblets. According to The New York Times, the shells are expected to have a 14% dud rate, meaning about 10 submunitions per artillery shell will not explode.
Source: AntiWar.
