NATO has left the decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine to its allies. Spain has positioned itself against shipping.
Despite criticism from Germany and organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HWR), the USA has confirmed that it is sending cluster bombs to Ukraine because they pose a great danger to the civilian population.
According to Joe Biden, the decision was “difficult” but necessary because “Ukrainians are running out of ammunition.”
The announcement is not without surprise and controversy. Banned in more than a hundred countries, this explosive device violates United Nations warnings. However, it was already used in the war in Ukraine by both Russian and Ukrainian troops, resulting in civilian deaths and serious injuries to survivors.
A significant proportion of the sub-projectiles dropped by these types of bombs do not explode, so they remain buried and can be triggered long after a conflict has ended.
In their announcement, US authorities insist that only devices with a failure rate of less than 2.35% be sent to Ukraine. In contrast, the cluster bombs that Russia has been using since the invasion began have failure rates of between 30% and 40%, according to US officials.
reactions
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has left the decision on the supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine to the allies after recalling that there is no common position within NATO on the 2008 Cluster Munitions Convention, which prohibits the use, the Development, production, acquisition, storage and transfer of this class of weapons.
“A number of allies have signed the convention, others have not. It is an individual decision to decide on the delivery of this military aid to Ukraine. It’s up to the governments, not the alliance,” NATO’s political chief said.
Secretary of Defense Margarita Robles has asserted that she “does not share” and is “against” the US decision.
Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, sees the decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine as yet another US provocation “bringing humanity closer to a new world war.”
From Russia, they also denounced that the United States “ignored the negative opinions of its allies about the dangers of indiscriminate use of cluster munitions” and “turned a blind eye to civilian casualties.”