Long sought by Ukraine, cluster bombs are weapons that open in the air, releasing submunitions, or bomblets, that are dispersed over a large area and are intended to wreak destruction on multiple targets at once.
The Pentagon is now expected to send thousands of them as part of a new military aid package worth up to €733 million for the war effort against Russia, according to people familiar with the decision.
The announcement comes despite widespread concerns that the bombs can cause civilian casualties and sparked a call from the United Nations to both Russia and Ukraine to avoid using them. The Pentagon will provide munitions that have a reduced “dud rate,” meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can result in unintended civilian deaths.
The weapons will come from Pentagon stocks and will also include Bradley and Stryker armoured vehicles and an array of ammunition, such as rounds for howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS, officials said.
The officials and others familiar with the decision were not authorised to publicly discuss the move before the official announcement and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
Ukrainian officials had asked for the weapons to aid their campaign to push through lines of Russian troops and make gains in the ongoing counteroffensive. Russian forces are already using cluster munitions on the battlefield and in populated civilian areas, US officials have said.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some cluster munitions leave behind bomblets, that have a high rate of failure to explode — up to 40% in some cases. US officials said Thursday that the rate of unexploded ordnance for the munitions that will be going to Ukraine is less than 3% and therefore will mean fewer threats left behind to civilians.
At a Pentagon briefing Thursday, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said he had no announcement to make about cluster munitions. He said the Defense Department has “multiple variants” of the munitions and “the ones that we are considering providing would not include older variants with (unexploding) rates that are higher than 2.35%.”
