Newsman: The White House announced Friday that the president had approved the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine, the latest instance where the US has provided Kyiv with weapons it initially resisted sending into the war. The US will include cluster bombs in the United States’ next $800 million weapons package for Ukraine, as well as armored vehicles and air defense missiles.
President Joe Biden acknowledged it took some time to be convinced to provide the controversial weapons, but he stressed the importance of supporting Ukraine’s ammunition supplies while preserving U.S. inventories, as well as discussing how Kyiv plans to deploy the bombs.
Cluster munitions are designed to destroy multiple targets at once by dropping explosive “bomblets” over a wide area, risking potentially harming civilians or other unintended targets. Both sides are already actively using the weapons. Ukrainian cluster munitions killed at least eight civilians in Izium last year, according to Human Rights Watch.
There are more than 100 countries, including the UK, France, and Germany, who have outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. But the US and Ukraine are not signatories to the ban.
The United States is not party to the 2010 Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international ban on their use signed by more than 100 countries.
President Joe Biden told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria 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 Kyiv 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.”
“This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” Biden said. “And so, what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to – not permanently – but to allow for this transition period, while we get more 155 weapons, these shells, for the Ukrainians.”
