The United States will include cluster munitions in its next military aid package to Ukraine to fulfill Kyiv's request to obtain the widely prohibited weapons, U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said on July 7 ahead of the Pentagon's formal announcement providing details on the package.
Sullivan told reporters at the White House that President Joe Biden decided that sending thousands of cluster munitions to Ukraine is the "right thing to do" as Kyiv seeks to push ahead with its counteroffensive against Russia's invasion.
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Biden made the decision upon a unanimous recommendation from his advisers, Sullivan said.
"We recognize that cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance," Sullivan said. "This is why we've deferred the decision for as long as we could."
Biden said in an interview with CNN that the decision was difficult, but he believes Kyiv needs the weapons to prevent Russian forces from halting the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The new military aid package provides Ukraine with "additional artillery systems and ammunition, including highly effective and reliable dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM)," the Pentagon said in a statement, referring to cluster munitions./
The package, valued at $800 million, is the 42nd provided to Ukraine drawing from U.S. stockpiles, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. It includes additional precision aerial munitions, munitions for multiple-launch rocket systems, 155-millimeter howitzers, other ammunition, and more armored Bradley and Stryker vehicles, Blinken said.
Zelenskiy thanked Biden and the American people for the "timely, broad and much-needed defense aid package," which he said would bring Ukraine closer to victory over the enemy and democracy closer to victory over dictatorship.
Cluster munitions are bombs that open in the air and release scores of smaller bomblets, many of which do not explode, putting civilians at risk even long after wars end.
Ukraine says it needs cluster munitions to fire against dug-in Russian positions. It has promised to use the munitions carefully, Sullivan said, adding that the U.S. will send a version of the munition that has a reduced “dud rate,” meaning fewer of the bomblets fail to explode.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said the additional aid package "is a very significant contribution to the acceleration of de-occupation procedures." Cluster munitions in particular would have "an extraordinary psycho-emotional impact on already demoralized Russian occupation groups," he said.
Laying out the case in favor of sending the weapons, Sullivan said the need to help Ukraine counter Russian forces outweighs the risk.
There is "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," Sullivan told journalists.
Germany said earlier on July 7 that it opposes sending the weapons to Ukraine. Germany, one of the states that has signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, said that while it won’t provide the bombs to Ukraine, it understands the American position.
“We’re certain that our U.S. friends didn’t take the decision about supplying such ammunition lightly,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin. “We need to remember once again that Russia has already used cluster ammunition at a large scale in its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Germany is one of the more than 100 countries that signed the international treaty, which prohibits all use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions. The United States, Ukraine, and Russia are not party to it.