Biden sending cluster munitions to Ukraine despite humanitarian concerns

President Biden announced Friday the US was providing the Ukrainian military with cluster munitions, a widely banned weapon of war known to cause indiscriminate death and destruction to non-military targets. 

“It was a very difficult decision on my part. And by the way, I discussed this with our allies, I discussed this with our friends up on the Hill,” Biden told CNN host Fareed Zakaria before adding that, “The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition.”

Cluster munitions are powerful artillery shells that scatter dozens of smaller explosive submunitions over a wider area, increasing lethality as they spread out to hit multiple targets, similar to pellets spreading from a single shotgun shell.

Two-thirds of NATO alliance members — including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Czech Republic — have banned the munitions because of the weapon’s ugly track record for causing civilian casualties.

 The Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty that prohibits all use, transfer, production, and stockpiling of the scattering explosive, has been ratified by 111 nations – but not by Russia, Ukraine or the United States.

Human Rights Watch has urged world leaders to not supply cluster munitions to either Ukrainian forces or invading Russian troops because of their “foreseeable danger to civilians.”

“Cluster munitions used by Russia and Ukraine are killing civilians now and will continue to do so for many years,” Mary Wareham, acting arms director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Both sides should immediately stop using them and not try to get more of these indiscriminate weapons.”

Most cluster munitions in current stocks are at least 20 years old, according to humanitarian groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and are increasingly becoming unreliable and notorious for their high failure rates. 

“The US government should not be providing cluster munitions to any country due to the foreseeable and lasting harm to civilians from these weapons,” Wareham said. “Transferring cluster munitions disregards the substantial danger they pose to civilians and undermines the global effort to ban them.”

National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday that the cluster munitions the US will be sending to Ukraine have failure rates “far below” that of the munitions Russia is using. 

“Russia has been using clustered munitions since the start of this war to attack. Russia has been using cluster munitions with high diversity and failure rates between 30% and 40%,” Sullivan said. 

“In this environment, Ukraine has been requesting cluster munitions in order to defend its own sovereign territory. Cluster munitions that we will provide has  [failure] rates far below what Russia’s is,” he explained, noting that the “dud rate” on American cluster munitions given to Ukraine will top out at 2.5%. 

“We recognize the cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm. This is why [we made this] decision because there is also a massive risk of civilian harm when Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more civilians,” Sullivan argued. 

Biden, 80, said on Friday that the cluster bombs were being shipped as a “transition period” weapon, while the US works to produce more artillery shells compatible with US-provided 155mm howitzers. 

“This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” Biden told CNN in an interview to air in full Sunday morning. “And so, what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to – not permanently – but to allow for this transition period, while we get more 155 weapons, these shells, for the Ukrainians.”

“They’re trying to get through those trenches and stop those tanks from rolling. But it was not an easy decision,” the president reiterated, adding “it took me a while to be convinced to do it.”

In February 2022, just days into the bloody invasion, the Biden administration considered Russia’s use of the munitions as a possible “war crime.”

“We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime,” then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said of reports that Vladimir Putin’s army was deploying the munitions in Ukraine.

The controversial weapons are part of a new $800 million package of military aid the US will be sending to Kyiv. 

The munitions will come from the Pentagon’s existing stocks, along with Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles, and ammunition for howitzers and a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launcher that are also a part of the new aid package.