Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that Russia has a “sufficient” supply of cluster munitions to use if Ukraine employs the controversial weapons.
The US has started shipping cluster bombs to Ukraine even though the weapons are notorious for killing and maiming civilians. US cluster munitions have already arrived in Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch has said both sides have used cluster bombs in the war, although Putin claimed Russia hasn’t.
“Russia has a sufficient reserve of various kinds of cluster munitions, various kinds. So far we have not done it, we have not used them, and we have not had such a need, despite a certain shortage in munitions at a certain point of time. But we didn’t do this,” he said. “But of course, if they are used against us, we reserve the right to tit-for-tat actions.”
Putin also noted that the White House said last year that the use of cluster bombs in Ukraine would be a potential war crime. “As for cluster munitions, the US administration itself through its staff gave its opinion on these munitions a while ago, when the use of cluster munitions was called a crime by the US administration itself. So, I think, this is how it should be treated,” he said.
The US is providing Ukraine cluster bombs in the form of 155mm artillery shells. The US provision of the weapons means that both sides might engage in heavy artillery battles.
Cluster bombs are so dangerous to civilians because they spread small submunitions, or bomblets, over large areas, and some don’t explode on impact, leaving a major hazard for civilians who could come across them years or decades later.
The US will provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells that are each packed with 72 bomblets. According to The New York Times, the shells are expected to have a 14% dud rate, meaning about 10 submunitions per artillery shell will not explode.
The US has supplied Ukraine with cluster bombs and they have in fact already been used. Multiple photos of cluster bombs with both the Ukraine and US Flag on them. Not seen a picture of the placard containing the National Stock Number or Part Number yet to confirm.
And no cluster bombs have ever been shown with Russian inscriptions on them…See my previous comment.
Exactly i make the same point in my post .
Acting like it was a long-debated decision to send cluster munitions is bs, just like all the other weaponry they were laughably “seriously” weighing, as to keep the killing going.
However, Alexander Mercouris on YouTube quotes Colonel MacGregor, former tank commander, as saying cluster bombs are an outdated weapon, not as efficient as people think. They will certainly not be a “game changer,” and are shipped because, as Biden revealed going off-script again, the Pentagon is running out of other munition.
So Russia would have no need to use them, other than maybe as a demonstration. Russia has plenty of other artillery shells, bombs and missiles. And using them makes it more difficult for both sides’ soldiers to advance.
Good thinking. CB have no militairy strategic value whatever. They are a terrorist weapon used in desperation, same as all the numerous assassinations the Nazis committed in Russia recently.
That’s not really true. The cluster munitions are useful against infantry concentrations in the field and against lightly armored vehicles. And even the remnant “duds” act as a sort of de facto minefield. The cluster weapons are unlikely to be very useful against dug-in, fortified positions or against heavily armored vehicles.
That doesn’t make them any less deadly for civilians, particularly children and rural populations, over the long term.
Exactly. Even if they all worked (no duds) their utility for the Ukrainian side is limited, as the Russians are dug into fortified positions and the small bomblets can’t penetrate earth/concrete; while they will be far more effective on the Russian side, as the Ukrainians are currently trying infantry infiltration tactics in the open (since their mounted operations have been a complete failure to date), with no real protection. Cluster munitions are the perfect response to that.
The U.S. is sending cluster bombs mainly because they are old, have been harmful to populations (and even its own armed forces) in the past. The world is calling for phasing them out. Thus, it’s a cheap way to get rid of them.
It’s even more cynical than that; the US is sending them because their supply of regular 155mm HE shells are so depleted that the only way to keep up with Ukrainian demand is to send the DPICM, knowing full well it is not a suitable munition. But it’s that or nothing, and we can’t be seen as “letting the Ukrainians down”.
There is something inconsistent here. I don’t think Russia has ever used cluster bombs in the past. You can bet your bottom dollar that if they had it would have been plastered in headlines all over the western world media and Zelensky would have been the first to say so.
They were shown on MSM. If you missed them, that’s a different story. There are lots of videos on youtube showing Russia using them against Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut, Mariupol and other places such civilian areas. Same with phosphorus.
There have been several instances, mainly at the start of the conflict, where Russia was accused of using them that later proved false. Nonetheless Human Rights Watch has claimed they have been used at other times. And both sides have. Plenty of phosphorus videos out there.
Nice article from David Stockman in today’s edition of antiwar.com. Haven’t seen your two cents there, Julio.
https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2023/07/16/villainy-in-vilnius/
Oh yes, MSM, Julio’s favorite go to source. Real realiable information there Julio. Keep the falsehoods coming. Here’s an article that could provide you with a little understanding of Russia’s reasons for going to war but since you’re ‘brainlocked’ on ‘Russia Bad’, I doubt it would have any impact upon your limited reasoning ability.
https://www.activistpost.com/2023/07/yes-we-can-end-the-ukraine-war-in-24-hours-heres-how.html
I dont get Putin’s rhetoric. Does he not know he has been using them already in Ukraine?
He has been accused, like most things in war, maybe true, maybe not. In any case that genie is out of the bottle, if he hadn’t used them in the past it is certainly on the table now.
By ‘Human Rights Watch has said both sides have used cluster bombs in the war’ so not accused by a specifically biased observer.
Human Rights Watch does not, as far as I know, have observers on the ground in Ukraine. From whom do they gather their evidence that Russia has used cluster munitions?
I would venture that their source is the Ukrainian government, which is very much biased. Atrocity claims always make juicy propaganda, and propaganda is big in this war.
They gather their from people on the ground, so as usual you are just wrong – all you needed to do was to read the linked article to know.:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/06/ukraine-civilian-deaths-cluster-munitions#:~:text=Human%20Rights%20Watch%20reported%20in,scale%20invasion%20in%20February%202022.
Any Russia wrongdoing is false and just Western MSM, right?
Just like Russia planning to invade. It was all Western hysteria.
Pretty much.
You ain’t the most sharpest knife in the kitchen are you?
HRW is a clearly biased organization.
About as agenda-driven as Southern Poverty Law Center.
I think he, like the rest of the Kremlin folks believe their own lies.
Either that or he is completely oblivious to what’s happening in the frontlines.
Well since you’re there on the front lines, send a text to the Russian authorities letting them know that they’re mistaken, you have experienced Putin using Cluster Bombs. What a bozo.
Sy Hersh sources say it is a lie that Russia has already used them.
He said Russia has not used them, and he’s just as believable as you or your MSM.
If Russia has used Cluster Bombs there will be many that don`t detonate so i`m sure there would be at least a few that could be videoed i`m sure , but just pointing the finger is much easier than producing EVIDENCE .
What, like this?
https://youtu.be/o3bLpdhCzyM
What does Radio Free Russia say about that one?
“Radio ‘Free’ Europe/Radio ‘Liberty'”
LOL!
If Putin himself admits it, you’d say it was a staged statement.
Now you’re getting it.
Will these munitions matter?
Will they create a opportunity that Ukraine can exploit and start pushing Russia back?
Is there anyone credible that shares that view that isn’t just a lonely voice mouthing wishes not analysis?
Those things sure are a ugly way to fail to advance but here we are.
There is no reason whatsover to doubt Biden, Sullivan, et al in this instance. The US is sending the cluster munitions because the Ukraine is running low of “regular,” high explosive ammunition. As is the USA, NATO and US allies generally. It has been widely reported, over the last several months, that the Ukraine, though firing far fewer shells than the Russians, was using them up faster than they could be produced in the West. And that attempts have been made to ramp up production, as well as to scour the stockpiles in the US, NATO, South Korea and even Israel.
The cluster bombs, besides being widely banned (even by many NATO countries) and thus creating a PR disaster for the USA, are not even as effective as high explosive shells, at least not for most legitimate military purposes. That they are being sent shows that the ammunition shortage is real.
It’s well known, the reason we changed our mind on this is we have already lost the atrition war with conventional arms. Russia has a seemingly endless supply of mortors and has been using them at a pace not seen since WWI. Meanwhile we’ve already used up our stockpiles and can’t produce enough because this Ivy league knuckle draggers that can shave the metal off a nickel decided ot use just in time manufacuting for arms and there’s only like 3 facilities in the US that produce them and they’re using the same factires they did in the 50’s. With billions of dollars we spend on defense, it’s rife with fruad. Meaning we spend 10 billion dollars on a weopon like a jet but only buy enough ammunition to make 3 missions with it.
These greedy muck rakers only know one thing how to steal your money and spend it. Like everything else in our capitalist vile maxim economy, it’s been monopolized by 5 companies when there were over 50 companies with government arms contracts 40 years ago. You can’t fire them, they are years behind in production and have constant cost over runs and quality issues. But yay, lets celebrate rich people owning American and turning us into a slave colony. Because I’ve never met people that enjoy being %#%# up the ass like Americans do.
But it was so simple to fight goat herders in our recent wars and keep the munitions flowing
Current belief is we only need 30 days worth of inventory for a really hot war with a sophisticated enemy like China because we can ramp up production to sustain ourselves within those 30 days.
We of course only decided on that because our stores are so low not because they have demonstrated the ability to do so in this war.
The cancer is free, treating it isn’t. Good luck sending Joe Biden the bill.
At worst, the US has claimed that on three occasions last year Russia used a small number of cluster bombs.
It has never been a regular feature of this war, never done on a large scale. It may not even have been Russia, since Ukraine had some of the same former Soviet cluster munitions.
Now however it is near all the ammo being supplied, and so will be used constantly on a large scale. That is an important difference.
Putin has apparently already taken a first tit-for-tat step. It has been reported that Russia has stopped allowing any further food exports by Ukraine.
I’d rather him destroy their storage facilities…!