Ukrainian forces have started using cluster munitions supplied by the United States. This was confirmed Thursday, July 20, by a spokesman for the White House, John Kirby, during a press conference. “We’ve started to get some feedback from the Ukrainians, and they’re using them quite effectively”he said, two weeks after Washington officially announced the shipment to kyiv of these controversial weapons.
After long months of hesitation, US President Joe Biden announced in early July that he had made the decision ” very difficult “ to deliver these prohibited weapons to more than one hundred and twenty countries – but not to Russia, Ukraine or the United States – which release by exploding hundreds of small bombs on an area that can reach several football fields. Children are very vulnerable to them, as they may not explode until they are picked up.
According to Mr. Kirby, the first uses of cluster munitions on the Ukrainian front took place “roughly within the last week”. Ukrainian forces “use them appropriately. They use them effectively and they really have an impact on Russian defensive formations and defensive maneuvers” of Moscow, he defended, in front of the journalists who questioned him.
“Drying of ammunition stocks”
Russia has always refused until now to use cluster munitions. Weapons of which it nevertheless has large stocks, as Russian President Vladimir Putin himself admitted during an interview broadcast on July 16 on the public television channel Rossia 1. According to the United Nations, Russian forces have already used them at least twenty-four times since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
A few images of alleged use of cluster munitions by Ukrainians have begun to circulate on social networks. Kiev has long been asking for this equipment to compensate, according to its military officials, for a disadvantage in terms of artillery, manpower, or even to overcome the many fortifications built by the Russians on the front line. It may “radically change” battlefield, said Ukrainian Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavsky in an interview broadcast on CNN on July 14.
Cluster munitions “will not solve all our problems on the battlefield”however recognized another senior Ukrainian officer, Colonel Oleksandr Bakulin, commander of the 57e Ukrainian brigade, as part of a report broadcast on July 19 on BBC News. “The shipment of cluster munitions to Ukraine is also a reflection of the drying up of allied ammunition stocks against Moscow”in particular of 155 mm shells, notes for its part a Western military source.