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.”
Regarding peace talks people here seems to want In February 2022 peace could have been made but NATO /US called up Boris Johnson who went to Ukraine the stop it and successfully did so. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_negotiations_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
What’s happens in Ukraine have been a topic for papers since the 1990s . It’s a proxy war where two competing oligarch fractions are fighting for dominance.
As Afghanistans president said Ukraine should have learned from them. When elephants dance…
The propaganda is so total that people rather see cluster bombs than peace. Fuck that.
Russia has repeatedly broken peace treaties and ceasefires with Ukraine. Their word means jack shit.
Next you’re going to suggest we just need to sit down for a reasonable conversation with Kim Jong Un…
And speaking of misinformation/propoganda, nice job trying obfuscate from the fact that Ukraine is fighting for their own sovereignty against an aggressor who’s committed genocide against their citizens, (with a recent history doing so in Syria as well).
You’re either purposefully peddling propoganda under the guise of a warning, or you’ve hypocritically fallen victim to it while warning against it. Either way, your statement is devoid of reality.
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I already responded to this elsewhere. Stop spamming shit.
Both sides are not the same and russia is the aggressor.
And I corrected you. Stop spamming. Oh yeah fucking NATO
What peace negotiations with Russia would result in Ukraine keeping its sovereign territory?
You mean the part where Ukraine has been ethnically cleansing for a decade and were the people living there want out of Ukraine?
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