The United States announced on Friday (Jul 7) that it would supply Ukraine with widely-banned cluster munitions for its counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces, and NATO’s leader said the military alliance would unite at a summit next week on how to bring Ukraine closer to joining.
Rights groups and the United Nations secretary-general questioned Washington’s decision on the munitions, part of an US$800 million security package that brings total US military aid to more than US$40 billion since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who describes the conflict as a “special military operation” to protect Russian security, has said the US and its allies were fighting an expanding proxy war.
The cluster munitions “will deliver in a time frame that is relevant for the counteroffensive”, a Pentagon official told reporters.
Cluster munitions are prohibited by more than 100 countries. They typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area and those that fail to explode pose a danger for decades after a conflict ends.
“Ukraine has provided written assurances that it is going to use these in a very careful way” to minimise risks to civilians, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
US President Joe Biden described the decision on cluster bombs as difficult but said Ukraine needed them.
“They’re trying to get through those trenches, and stop those tanks from rolling,” Biden said in an interview with CNN.
“It was not an easy decision.”
Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, raised “serious concerns” about decisions by Washington and the NATO leadership, RIA news agency reported.
It quoted Karasin as saying that Russia “of course, will respond to this”.
Ukraine says it has taken back some villages in southern Ukraine since the counteroffensive began in early June, but that it lacks the firepower and air cover to make faster progress.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield situation.
“It’s too early to judge how the counteroffensive is going one way or the other because we’re at the beginning of the middle,” Colin Kahl, the US under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters.
Source: CNA
