Sky News U.S. correspondent Mark Stone said Washington’s decision to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine shows that Kyiv forces are having a hard time counteroffensive.
“The transfer of these weapons creates clear risks for civilians. Not now, but in the future. Echoes of war from unexploded submunitions are evident on former battlefields around the world, ”Stone wrote in an article posted on the channel’s website.
The same source added that the US “risks losing ‘moral superiority over Russia’ by supplying weapons banned in most countries of the world. Why should we supply it? Because the facts on the ground are not in favor of Ukraine. This decision is a clear sign that Ukraine’s military affairs are not going well.
Stone notes that the long-announced “spring counter-offensive” of Ukrainian forces did not begin in the spring or summer, adding that “it is difficult for Ukrainian forces to advance against well-fortified Russian positions and conventional artillery depots. are rapidly depleted from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and its Western allies.
“In this case, we need a supply bridge, a weapon that will allow Kyiv to continue fighting until the ammunition shortage is resolved. The solution was cluster munitions from the Pentagon’s “huge stockpile,” the spokesman said.
Stone points out that Ukraine bears full responsibility for the risks associated with the threat to civilians from unexploded cluster munitions, since the United States has promised to help Ukraine clean up areas where these weapons were used after the end of the conflict.
In his article, Stone cites data from the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, according to which 97 percent of cluster munition victims worldwide are civilians, especially children.
On Friday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US had decided to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine, which the UN opposed, and also noted that Kiev had given Washington written assurances that the US would use cluster munitions with minimal threats to civilians.
For its part, Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said on Thursday that the United States intends to “select for Ukraine cluster munitions that are expected to pose a minimal threat to civilians.”
Cluster bomb kits can contain hundreds of individual submunitions that stumble through the air when detonated over an area of tens of square meters, some do not explode immediately and remain on the ground, posing a threat to civilians long after the end of the conflict. And in 2008, the Convention on Cluster Munitions was adopted, to which 111 countries have acceded, and another 12 countries have signed but not yet ratified.
According to the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch, the percentage of unexploded ordnance, as a rule, is much higher than stated, which leads to civilian casualties.
Source: TASS