US set to send Ukraine controversial cluster munitions banned in 123 countries, official says

The US is expected to say it will provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, a senior administration official has confirmed, with an announcement likely as soon as Thursday.

The expected decision was confirmed on Wednesday night by a senior Biden administration official, speaking to The New York Times on condition of anonymity.

A White House spokesperson said today that provision of cluster munitions to Ukraine was under “active consideration”. 

The transferral of such weapons to Ukraine would require the approval of the US President, Joe Biden.

Cluster munitions are highly controversial weapons that break apart mid-air and scatter clusters of smaller explosive submunitions across a wide area, which can cause indiscriminate harm to civilians.

Although they are designed to explode when they hit the ground, many fail to function when they land, posing a risk of exploding at a later date when someone accidentally encounters them.

Ukraine has been pushing for the weapons to help in its counteroffensive against Russian troops. Cluster munitions are more effective against soldiers who have dug themselves into trenches, which the Russians have done extensively along the front lines. Ukraine has said it would deploy the weapons judiciously, and that many of these frontline areas are already affected by land mines.

American officials have been weighing up whether to give Ukraine such weapons for months. They had not yet been approved because of congressional restrictions and concerns among allies over their use.

However, there has been a shift in recent rhetoric. Last month Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the US defence department, said the Pentagon had determined that cluster munitions would be useful for Ukraine, “especially against dug-in Russian positions on the battlefield”.

For the transfer, Ukraine would have to agree that cluster munitions “will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians”.

Cluster munitions are banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which 123 countries, excluding Russia, Ukraine and the US, have joined.

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Rights groups have urged the US not to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine. In a report released on Thursday, Human Rights Watch said both Russian and Ukrainian forces had used cluster munitions that have killed Ukrainian civilians, and said the US should not provide them.

Transferring these weapons would inevitably cause long-term suffering for civilians and undermine the international opprobrium of their use, Human Rights Watch said.

“Cluster munitions used by Russia and Ukraine are killing civilians now and will continue to do so for many years,” Mary Wareham, the group’s acting arms director, said. “Both sides should immediately stop using them and not try to get more of these indiscriminate weapons.”

She added: “The US government should not be providing cluster munitions to any country due to the foreseeable and lasting harm to civilians from these weapons.

“Transferring cluster munitions disregards the substantial danger they pose to civilians and undermines the global effort to ban them.”