Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the United States on Friday for approving a new defense package including the largely internationally banned and controversial cluster bombs, which can cause indiscriminate and severe civilian casualties, to be sent to Kyiv, amid the ongoing war with Russia.
The move has drawn sharp criticism from rights groups due to the danger unexploded bomblets pose even after a conflict has ended.
"A timely, broad and much-needed defense aid package from the United States," Zelenskyy said on social media, thanking the American people and Biden for their "decisive steps." He said the "expansion of Ukraine's defense capabilities will provide new tools for the de-occupation of our land and bringing peace closer."
However, U.S. President Joe Biden said it was a very difficult decision to give Ukraine cluster munitions in a CNN interview.
Asked why he was providing the cluster munitions now, Biden told reporters that it was because the effort to defend against Russia had "run out of ammunition."
Washington's decision to deliver the controversial weapons – banned across a large part of the world but not in Russia or Ukraine – dramatically ups the stakes in the war, which enters its 500th day on Saturday.
Rights groups have come out strongly against the U.S. providing the munitions.
Human Rights Watch said that "transferring these weapons would inevitably cause long-term suffering for civilians and undermine the international opprobrium of their use opposes."
Amnesty International said Biden's administration "must understand that any decision enabling the broader use of cluster bombs in this war will likely lead to one predictable outcome: the further death of civilians."
"Cluster munitions are an indiscriminate weapon that presents a grave threat to civilian lives, even long after a conflict has ended. Their transfer and use by any country under any circumstances is incompatible with international law," it added.
Zelenskyy has been traveling across Europe and working the phones trying to secure bigger and better weapons for his outmatched army, which has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive that is progressing less swiftly than Ukraine's allies had hoped.
"Without long-range weapons, it is difficult not only to fulfill an offensive mission, it is difficult to conduct a defensive operation, to be honest," Zelenskyy told reporters while hopping between Bratislava, Prague and Istanbul on Friday.
Biden's decision to approve the delivery of cluster munitions provides Ukraine with weapons capable of dispersing multiple small explosives over an area covering several football fields.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) teams on the ground have seen both Ukraine and Russia use their existing stocks of the weapons, whose use humanitarian groups strongly condemn.
They warn that many bomblets go undetonated, potentially endangering civilians for years to come.
Defending the U.S. move, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan argued there was "a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory."
Russian officials issued no immediate response.
"We consulted closely with allies in deciding to do this and some allies, who are not signatories to the Oslo Convention, embraced it with open arms and this is absolutely the right thing to do," Sullivan said at a press briefing in defense of the decision.
He said that Ukraine has provided written assurances to use the munitions "in a very careful way, that is aimed at minimizing any risk to civilians."
Sullivan stressed that the U.S. will not leave Ukraine "defenseless" in the conflict with Russia.
"Ukraine would not be using these munitions in some foreign land. This is their country they're defending," said Sullivan.
He also acknowledged the potential risk of civilian harm caused by unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions.
"This is why we've 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 Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians, because Ukraine does not have enough artillery. That is intolerable to us," Sullivan said.
Shortly after Sullivan's remarks, Pentagon recalled that Russia has been using cluster munitions indiscriminately since the start of the war to attack Ukraine.
"By contrast, Ukraine is seeking DPICM (Dual-Purpose Conventional Improved Munitions) rounds in order to defend its own sovereign territory," Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters at Pentagon.
He said that the DPICM rounds the U.S. will provide Ukraine have low failure or dud rates, adding that "the DPICM ammunition we're delivering to Ukraine will consist only of those with a dud rate of less than 2.35%."
Kahl said that Russia has been using cluster munitions across Ukraine with dud rates of between 30% and 40%.
The provision of cluster munitions is announced as part of the 42nd drawdown for Ukraine.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday's package also includes additional precision aerial munitions, munitions for multiple launch rocket systems, 155mm howitzers, 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, air defense munitions, anti-tank missiles and rockets, more armored Bradley and Stryker vehicles, and other equipment essential to strengthening Ukraine's brave forces on the battlefield and helping them retake Ukraine's sovereign territory and defend their fellow citizens.
"This package contains critical security assistance totaling $800 million worth of arms and equipment from Department of Defense stocks," said Blinken.
The top U.S. diplomat reiterated that it was Moscow that started the war against Ukraine and that it "could end it at any time by withdrawing its forces from Ukraine and stopping its brutal attacks against Ukraine's cities and people."
A 2009 U.S. law bans exports of American cluster munitions with bomblet failure rates higher than 1%, which covers virtually all of the U.S. military stockpile. Biden waived prohibitions around the munitions, just as his predecessor Donald Trump did in 2021 to allow the export of cluster munitions technology to South Korea.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg earlier signaled his understanding for the U.S. decision, before it had been officially announced.
"We are faced with a brutal war," he said, noting that both sides are using cluster bombs.
"Russia is using cluster munition to attack, to invade Ukraine. Ukraine is using cluster munition to protect itself against an aggressor," he said.
Stoltenberg said that it is for individual allies to decide on what weapons and equipment to send to Ukraine.
The Pentagon did not disclose further details on when the deliveries would happen, or on the quantity of the deliveries.
The U.S. says it has hundreds of thousands of the projectiles in stock.
