The United States will transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine for the first time. This was announced at a briefing by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Ukraine requested cluster munitions from the United States in December last year. The American authorities have been pondering this request for several months. The supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine was opposed, in particular, by Germany and the UN.
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch published a report in which they cited cases of the use of cluster munitions by Ukraine during the Russian occupation of Izyum in the Kharkiv region. The study said that Russia also uses cluster munitions. The authors of the report opposed the transfer of these dangerous weapons to Ukraine.
The use of cluster munitions is prohibited by the 2010 Convention, which has been signed by more than a hundred countries. However, Ukraine, Türkiye, Russia and the United States did not join it.
Cluster munitions are projectiles that contain multiple explosive or subdividing charges, called submunitions, that disperse over a wide area when detonated. They pose a danger to civilians because they cover a large area, and unexploded submunitions can explode later on while moving, injuring civilians, animals, and damaging vehicles.