The White House has confirmed that Ukraine is using US cluster bombs against Russian forces in the country.
National Security Spokesman John Kirby said initial feedback suggested they were being used “effectively” on Russian defensive positions and operations.
Cluster bombs scatter multiple bomblets and are banned by more than 100 states due to their threat to civilians.
The US agreed to supply them to boost Ukrainian ammunition supplies.
Ukraine has promised the bombs will only be used to dislodge concentrations of Russian enemy soldiers.
“They are using them appropriately,” Mr Kirby said. “They’re using them effectively and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and Russia’s defensive manoeuvring. I think I can leave it at that.”
The US decided to send cluster bombs after Ukraine warned that it was running out of ammunition during its summer counter-offensive, which has been slower and more costly than many had hoped.
President Joe Biden called the decision “very difficult”, while its allies the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Spain opposed their use.
The vast majority sent are artillery shells with a lower than 2.35% “dud rate”, a reference to the percentage of bomblets which do not explode immediately and can remain a threat for years.
The weapons are effective when used against troops in trenches and fortified positions, as they render large areas too dangerous to move around in until cleared.
Russia has used similar cluster bombs in Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion last year, including in civilian areas.
Reacting to the US decision to send the bombs, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had similar weapons and they would be used “if they are used against us”.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Ukrainian general in charge of operations in the country’s east, told the BBC last week that his forces needed the weapons to “inflict maximum damage on enemy infantry”.
“We’d like to get very fast results, but in reality it’s practically impossible. The more infantry who die here, the more their relatives back in Russia will ask their government ‘why?’”
He added however that cluster bombs would not “solve all our problems”.
He also acknowledged that their use was controversial, but added: “If the Russians didn’t use them, perhaps conscience would not allow us to do it too.”
War is hell. That statement is both true and has lost all meaning, because no one really feels it.
We should be negotiating a peace by now. The suffering of these cluster bombs cause is immeasurable, as is the general suffering of this war.
Imagine
spoiler
beating a puppy to death with a golf club
. Imagine the whole thing vividly, and then imagine
spoiler
pushing the pulpy body aside
and doing it again, and just repeating this exercise ad nausium for hours and hours. This is the kind of feeling we should experience when we read stories about this conflict, if we had any concept of what a war is. And when we debate whether to use cluster bombs, that’s like debating whether to use
spoiler
a nine iron or crush the puppy’s skull slowly with a boot
. One is definitely, definitely DEFINITELY WORSE, and should NEVER BE DONE, but both are awful and should make us so physically ill to think about that we would do anything at all – such as negotiate a ceasefire! – to avoid doing it.
Ukraine already demanded that Putin in Russia withdraw several times. Putin has refused. End of discussion.
As the people responsible for the war are the leaders of Russia, anything we say is irrelevant as we are not party to the conflict.
We are a party. We are supplying weapons now that are going to kill Ukrainian civilians for years after the war ends. That’s what cluster bombs do.
I fully support Ukraine’s defense. That means exercising some judgement over what we contribute to. So many atrocities have been committed in our name. Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Israel, Nicaragua, Iran… We need to put some lid on how many innocent kids are worth the hypothetical gains we’re expecting to get.
When this ends – it will one day end – I hope Ukrainians get a satisfactory deal. However I must ask:
-
It’s been said – often in bad faith – that eastern Ukraine is Russian-sympathetic. That a major faction may actually prefer Russian rule. I find this disgusting, but if it turns out to be true, are we prepared to follow their wishes? Or do we disregard that because it conflicts with our preferences?
-
If Russia keeps the current territory, are you prepared to contend with all the deaths that occur between now and then? If the deaths and trauma DON’T yield gains, will you say, ‘My god… Andrew as right. I insisted that more blood would yield a worthwhile gain and it didn’t. That blood was split for nothing.’
I think war is fucking hell, and I don’t think people are applying any judgement to their anger.
Personally, I think you have a very bad faith argument in believing that your argument holds more weight than the entire government and military organization of the country of Ukraine. It’s their decision to make, not yours. They have to live with the consequences, not you or me.
And arguing that Russia may permanently acquire land in Ukraine that they have invaded a year ago is completely illegal under international law.
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Friendly reminder Russia is committing atrocities in the occupied territories. So any kind of negotiated “peace” that involves Ukraine giving up territory means them consigning all their citizens living there to torture, random executions, wanton sexual violence, having their children taken away, and worse!
That’s what you’re calling for when you advocate a “negotiated settlement”.
This reminds me of a time a few years ago when my husband and I were trying to sell a motorcycle. The short version is that we wanted $4k, and we get holding out, but the wait involved kept causing the motorcycle – which suffers when idle – to need further costly servicing before we finally sold it for $2k. Which was close to what we spent unnecessarily on servicing it while holding out for a better price.
The point is that you’re making some dangerous unexamined assumptions here. Let’s just remember that eventually, the fighting will end with a negotiation and a treaty. We don’t know what such a treaty would yield now, and we don’t know what it will yield if it happens later. We have no way of knowing that a treaty negotiated later is going to be better than one granted now.
More importantly, I don’t think you – or most of the people in this comment section – are factoring in the human cost to this war by the day. It’s probably not possible. It’s like picturing 200 billion ducks. Your brain is not capable of comprehending it.
I’m grateful I’m not responsible for doing this math and figuring out when the ideal trade off occurs, but it terrifies me that people are applying the same faulty logic that cost me $2k dollars when the stakes aren’t $2k, they are literally more human blood than our brains are capable of conceptualizing.
This isn’t some motorcycle, these are human beings that have had their land, lives and culture stolen from them.
What an idealistic and utopian view. A sovereign country has been invaded, it has the right to use weapons it deems necessary to defend itself. What’s so difficult about that? Russia can pack up and go home, then there will be peace.
These are pretty words used to gloss over the truth: war is hell. No one but the profiteers (on all sides) win.
Total victory, sovereignty, defend ITSelf, like a country is a person… These are all the ancient terms used to justify dragging confused children from homes and shoving rifles into the hands of young men who deserve to be trying to lose their virginity instead of their legs.
War is hell. Every bomb, every bullet should be fired in the service of firing as few after it as possible.
Not to mention, Russian forces have been using these types of munitions, but with much higher dud rates, already.
It’s their soil. They can do what they want to it.
And the ruskies are using them in civilian targets.
Beyond that, know what else has a chance of exploding well after the war and injuring or killing someone?
You know what both Ukrain and Russia have already use many thousands more of than Ukraine has been issued cluster munitions?
You know what no one is moralizing about so hard they shit their pants?
::: Landmines :::
Peace will happen when Russia removes itself from it’s sovereign neighbor. Until that happens, turn Russians into dog food.
You cannot give an inch.
Every war ends in a meeting. Negotiate a conplete Russian withdrawal, or Putin’s surrender. You can negotiate for anything, but fighting without talking while while communities are permanently displaced and traumatized is just sad evidence that defending Ukrainians lives or territory is no longer the US’s goal.
Are we doing this because we’re value Ukrainians? Or because we hate Russia?
We’re arming Ukraine to preserve the rule based order established after War II that dictates sovereign nations cannot have their territory unilaterally annexed by another nation. Allowing this to happen without support to Ukraine would only tell other despots looking to start wars of conquest that they are allowed to do so without repercussion.
There have been talks and negotiations. But if it’s clear again and again that there is no trust, where should these lead? If you know that any negotiation and agreement is unreliable, what’s the point? What’s the point of stopping fighting if this is just used as positioning by an enemy that doesn’t share your wish for peace or other values and doesn’t even respect your autonomy or self-determined identity? Think about the negotiations around Mariupol, where civilian evacuation routes were agreed upon by both parties to then be attacked. Or civilian infrastructure like Odessa just a few days ago and countless other examples.
I think your wish for peace is commendable, but it’s incredibly removed from reality.
It is common in wars to fight and talk at the same time. Sometimes talking is done via secret back channels which the public will not find out about until many years after the war.
It is not possible to only talk when fighting has stopped, because for fighting to stop, you either need to negotiate a ceasefire by talking, or one side has to be annihilated, and then there is no one left to talk to.
