US to provide highly controversial cluster bombs to Ukraine to prevent it running out of artillery rounds

The United States is to provide highly controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine, the White House has confirmed. The Biden administration said it had taken the decision after taking “a real hard look” at the potential danger to civilians.

It suggested cluster munitions were needed to avoid the danger of Ukraine running out of artillery rounds – which it sees as crucial in the conflict – in the weeks and months ahead.

The Irish Government on Friday reiterated its strong opposition to the use of cluster bombs, which scatter bomblets over a wide area and are designed to kill personnel and damage vehicles. However, in some cases these submunitions do not explode as intended and can pose a risk to civilians over a long period of time.

In 2018, Ireland played a big role in drafting and negotiating the Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty signed by about 120 countries banning their use, development and transfer.

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The convention was signed in Oslo, Norway following two weeks of negotiations in Dublin led by the Irish government. Russia, the United States and Ukraine were among those countries which did not sign.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday that Ukraine had provided written assurances that it intended to use these weapons in such a way as to minimise the exposure of civilians to danger.

He told a White House press briefing that the provision of cluster munitions would act as a “bridge” while capacity was built up in the production of conventional artillery for use by Ukrainian forces.

[ White House says provision of cluster munitions to Ukraine by US ‘under active consideration’ ]

Asked about the US decision to transfer cluster bombs to Ukraine, a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said their use “in armed conflicts underscores the continuing threat that these weapons present to civilians”.

Without naming the Biden administration, the department said Ireland maintained its position that the weapons were by their nature “indiscriminate and imprecise and may potentially result in serious breaches of international humanitarian law”.

A spokesman for the Department said Ireland maintained a “strong and unwavering commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions since its adoption in 2008″.

Former minister for foreign affairs Dermot Ahern, who headed Irish efforts on the convention, told The Irish Times he was seriously concerned “about the use cluster munitions by any combatants in war situations, including in Ukraine”.

Mr Sullivan said US authorities considered that “this is the moment to begin the construction of that bridge so that there isn’t any period over the summer or heading into this fall [autumn] when Ukraine is short on artillery, and being short on artillery, it is vulnerable to Russian counterattacks that could subjugate more Ukrainian civilians”.

“Ukraine needs artillery to sustain its offensive and defensive operations. Artillery is at the core of this conflict. Ukraine is firing thousands of rounds per day to defend against Russian efforts to advance and also to support its own efforts to re-take its sovereign territory.”

“We have provided Ukraine with a historic amount of unitary artillery rounds and we are ramping up domestic production of these rounds… but this process will continue to take time and it will be critical to provide Ukraine with a bridge of supplies while our domestic production is ramped up.”

“We will not leave Ukraine defenceless at any point in this conflict, period,” he said.

Mr Sullivan said Russia had been using cluster munitions to attack Ukraine since the start of its invasion in February last year and that its weapons had a high failure rate of between 30 and 40 per cent. He suggested the US weapons to be provided to Ukraine would have a failure rate of not higher than 2.5 per cent.

“We recognise cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordinance. That is why we deferred the decision for as long as we could. But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more of Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians because Ukraine does not have sufficient artillery.”

“That is intolerable to us”.