8:54 p.m. ET, June 29, 2023
Officials say the Biden administration may soon authorize shipments of controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine
From CNN’s Natasha Bertrand: The Biden administration is urgently considering authorizing the transfer of controversial cluster munitions warheads to Ukraine, several people familiar with the matter told CNN, as Ukrainians struggle to make greater strides in their counter-offensive that has been going on for weeks. “These would undoubtedly have a significant impact on the battlefield,” a US official told CNN.
Officials told CNN that a final decision from the White House is expected soon and that if approved, the weapons could be included in a new military aid package for Ukraine as early as next month.
Ukrainian officials have been pushing for the US to provide the munitions for the last year, arguing that it would provide more munitions for Western-provided artillery and missile systems and help reduce Russia’s numerical superiority in artillery.
But the US has been reluctant to provide them because they could pose a risk to civilians and because some key US allies, including Britain, France and Germany, have signed bans on cluster munitions – weapons that disperse “bomblets”. across large areas that may not explode on impact and pose a long-term hazard to anyone encountering them, similar to landmines.
However, Ukraine’s counteroffensive launched earlier in the month has not made as much headway as US officials had hoped at this point, and Russian defenses have proved better fortified than expected.
And it’s not clear whether the large amount of artillery ammunition that Ukrainians are consuming every day will be sustainable as the counteroffensive drags on, officials and military analysts said.
cluster munitions, Officials said they could help fill that gap, which the US has been accumulating in bulk since its exit in 2016.
Government officials also believe they have managed to allay concerns from some allies about the US supplying the munitions, officials said.
The US official noted that the weapon is not a new capability for Ukraine. Both Ukrainians and Russians have used cluster bombs since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and more recently Ukrainian forces have begun using Turkey-supplied cluster munitions on the battlefield.