Ukraine Assured U.S. It Won’t Use Cluster Munitions in Civilian Areas

The Biden administration decided to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine after receiving written assurances from Kyiv that the weapons wouldn’t be used in civilian areas, U.S. officials said Friday.

In White House and Pentagon briefings, senior officials defended the move as a military necessity to prevent Ukraine from running low on artillery ammunition at a critical stage in the conflict.

“The challenge of cluster munitions, as you know, is that even at low dud rates, there are some unexploded ordnance that is left and that could potentially pose a risk to civilians,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. “But we had to balance that against the risk…if Ukraine did not have sufficient artillery ammunition.”

Cluster munitions fired from artillery pieces strew small bomblets over a wide area, and some fail to explode, posing a risk to civilians in the future after the conflict ends.

To further mitigate the risk to civilians, the U.S. plans to provide cluster munitions that have a dud rate of less than 2.35%, the officials added, referring to the rate at which the bomblets don’t blow up, compared with 30% to 40% in the cluster munitions the Russians have used.

U.S. officials wouldn’t say how many cluster munitions they intend to provide to Ukraine, but the Pentagon noted that hundreds of thousands of rounds are available.

The administration is issuing a waiver under arms export laws to provide the weapons, formally known as dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, or DPICM.

Ukraine has long appealed for cluster munitions. The U.S. military has maintained that the weapons could be effective when employed against Russian troop and armored formations as well as trench lines.

But Kyiv’s requests had been deferred as the White House weighed the concerns of human-rights groups that the weapons would present a danger to civilians, including long after a conflict is over.

The Biden administration has been sharply critical of Russia’s use of cluster munitions. In a March 2022 address at the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that the cluster munitions the Russians were moving into Ukraine were “exceptionally lethal weaponry” which “has no place on the battlefield.”

But now that Washington has decided to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, the Biden administration sought to draw a distinction between its handling the provision of the weapons and how Moscow has proceeded.

Russia has “likely expended tens of millions of submunitions or bomblets across Ukraine,” Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters.

In contrast, Kahl said, Ukraine has promised not to use the rounds in “civilian populated urban environments” and record where the weapons are employed so they can be cleaned up later.

The U.S., Kahl added, has already allocated more than $95 million for demining activities in Ukraine and will provide additional support to assist Kyiv in dealing with the use of cluster munitions by both sides in the conflict.

More than 110 countries have signed an international convention that prohibits the use, transfer, production and stockpiling of cluster bombs. Many NATO members have signed, including Britain, Germany and France. But the list of signatories contains notable absences, including the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, China, Estonia, Finland, India, Poland, Romania and Turkey.

In an interview with CNN,

In the end, Biden said, he accepted the Pentagon recommendation that the cluster munitions were needed for a “transition period” until the U.S. stocks of 155mm artillery ammunition can be replenished.

“The main thing is they either have a weapon to stop the Russians now—keep them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas—or they don’t,” Biden said.

With NATO seeking to project unity at its summit next week, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg underscored that the provision of cluster munition was a decision for individual nations.

“This will be for governments to decide—not for NATO as an alliance,” Stoltenberg said.

Officials from some European governments that have signed the convention indicated that they accepted the U.S. position, which also reduces the need for their nations to dig deeper in their ammunition stores to help Ukraine.

Some human-rights groups weren’t persuaded by the Biden administration’s arguments and urged that all sides forswear the weapons.

“Civilians will bear the brunt of this decision over the coming decades,” said a statement by nongovernmental group Humanity & Inclusion.

Republican lawmakers said the decision was overdue and urged the White House to follow up by providing ATACMS long-range missiles to Ukraine.

“While no weapons system is a proverbial golden bullet, DPICMs will help fill a key gap for Ukraine’s military and will allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces to target and eliminate Russian forces more efficiently, including in fortified positions on the battlefield,” said Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who serves as the ranking Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a joint statement.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at [email protected] and Gordon Lubold at [email protected]