A Ukrainian military official suggested to The Washington Post that Ukrainian forces are not documenting where they’re using US-provided cluster bombs in Ukraine despite assurances the Biden administration said it received.
The official, who only went by his first name, Stanislav, detailed Ukraine’s use of cluster bombs, which scatter small submunitions over large areas and are extremely hazardous to civilians.
The report reads: “In welcoming the US decision to send the munitions, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Kyiv will keep a ‘strict record of the use of these weapons and the local zones where they will be used.’ But when asked about how the documentation process works, Stanislav suggested that there was none.”
A Ukrainian public affairs officer insisted to the Post that Ukrainian artillery crews write down what type of munition they use and in what direction it’s fired after every use of US-made M109 howitzers. But the comments from Stanislav, a member of Ukraine’s 14th Mechanized Brigade and part of a crew that fires cluster bombs with M109s, signal that’s not the case.
Cluster bombs are so hazardous to civilians because many of the submunitions, or bomblets, do not explode on impact and can be found years or decades later. Documenting where cluster bombs are used would make future clean-up efforts easier, although the weapons are hard to track since they spread submunitions over such a large area.
The Post report noted that the US had given Ukraine older cluster munitions, known as dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM), the production of which ended in the 1990s. The New York Times has estimated that the dud rate for the DPICMs that have been provided for Ukraine would be about 14%. Because of the high dud rate, President Biden had to bypass US law that prohibits the production, use, or transfer of cluster munitions with a dud rate of over 1%.
Biden got around the law by using an obscure provision of the Foreign Assistance Act that allows the US to provide weapons regardless of export controls if the president determines doing so is a vital national security interest even though continuing to fuel a proxy war against the world’s largest nuclear-armed state is a huge risk to US national security.
Due to their indiscriminate nature, cluster bombs are banned by over 100 countries. But the US, Ukraine, and Russia are not parties to the treaty, known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
“A Ukrainian public affairs officer insisted to the Post that Ukrainian artillery crews write down what type of munition they use and in what direction it’s fired…”
Yes, and I’m sure they make carbon copy of every receipt and invoice too. After all, a country in ruins has no room to have sloppy books and records.
I would like to get access to the files of the Pentagon or the CIA.
Then try joining the f cking agency.
Bye,…
Do they even realize how incredibly stupid this sounds?
The use of cluster munitions by Ukrainian/NATO army against civilians in Donetsk is well documented. By the way, it doesn’t contradict Anglo-Saxon tradition of using the weapons of mass destruction against civilians of enemy nations. They do it in order to undermine the will to resist. Nazi Germany did the same.
The US has a lot of contradictions most of them involving war and racism for economic gain and political power not to mention subjugation of revolutionary movements.
There are no contradiction between things you mentioned. War, racism and subjugation of revolutionary movements, all this serves for reinforcing the power of oligarchy.
Quell surprise.
Neocon Response: Not to worry. Children will eventually discover all the unexploded cluster munitions.
60,000 missing Ukrainian kids are being trained to become human mine sweepers.
It’s Russia’s fault. Ukrainian forces were trying to keep records, but their pencils were destroyed in artillery barrages.
Or, it’s NATO’s fault; the pencils were promised in an earlier arms transfer, but the damn Germans reneged, again.
They need some schooling in order to learn how to keep the records…!
Biden got around the law by using an obscure provision of the Foreign Assistance Act that allows the US to provide weapons regardless of export controls if the president determines doing so is a vital national security interest even though continuing to fuel a proxy war against the world’s largest nuclear-armed state is a huge risk to US national security.
Then why even have the fucking law?
This. Why have any laws in the presence of the Regal Presidency?
Quickly heading in that direction.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights seems to be a dead document right about now especially with this administration. The people who seek power are the worst people to be in those positions it would be more fitting for most of them to be riding on the back of a trash truck picking up waste, with all due respect to garbage grabbers who unlike the politicans do actually serve the public interest in performing a valuable service.
“especially with this administration.”
I see nothing unique about this administration. I think the reason the rate of adoption of tyranny at least seems to be increasing under Biden is the accumulated “testing the waters” done by all the previous administrations. Virtually anyone now elected president has inherited more and more leeway in what they can do unilaterally to violate the Bill of Rights without significant opposition
I would tend to agree with you although I would add that Trump was the exception to the increasing powers of the presidency as the powers to be made it almost impossible for him to implement many of his administrations goals. So shall we devolve into a South American type Banana Republic or a Soviet style dictatorship? Or something else?
I think we’re getting close to a Banana Republic but a Soviet style dictatorship is not out of the question in the long run.
He did manage to drop out of the JCPOA, start the Space Force, give Israel the Golan Heights, do the Abraham accords, sanction the fuck out of multiple countries and so on and so on. In other words, the nasty shit in those “administration goals” were indeed allowed to be implemented.
This is BS. Another article with “official” (s) as sources.
Ukrainians record all of their strikes. It gets recorded by paper, ipads, radio comms systems, and videos as they observe all of their attacks. They have fully mission capable Tactical Operation Centers providing command and control in the frontlines.
This reads like the asked “official” had no clue on what he was talking about.
“A Ukrainian public affairs officer insisted to the Post that Ukrainian artillery crews write down what type of munition they use and in what direction it’s fired after every use of US-made M109 howitzers.”
And don’t forget pencils, Don.
Generally that kind of information is recorded — for military purposes.
If you call in a fire mission to my battery for HE rounds on grid square 123456, and what arrives is illumination over grid square 56789, someone’s going to want to know why. Did the comm guy misunderstand the call for fire, or did the forward observer perhaps get the target location wrong? Did the plotting board people mess up the calculations? Were the guns incorrectly laid in with the wrong azimuth for principal direction of fire? Was the wrong kind of ammo being stored in boxes marked “High Explosive?”
And even if everything goes right, that information is useful for registering particular locations for future fire missions. Once you know for sure that that burning BMP hulk is located at 123456, you give it a name and future fire missions can be called in on it or relative to it.
These are the same people who couldn’t keep track of and stop arms from being taken and sold on the black market. So it’s difficult to see the same people writing copious meticulous notes of where cluster bombs with a 14% dud rate landed.
“These are the same people who couldn’t keep track of and stop arms from being taken and sold on the black market”
You just described every government and every army on the planet.
It’s lucrative. But in Ukraine 80% don’t even want to be on the frontlines. You think they are all down with record keeping?
Only 80% don’t want to be on the front lines? Are the other 20% stupid or something?
My best guess is that there’s a LOT of breakdown in the record-keeping, not to mention a lot of fraud in the record-keeping (“delivered 1000 rounds to Battery X at grid 123456” might well mean “delivered three rounds, sold the rest to some guy who wanted to discuss Allah’s plan for paradise with me”).
I was just making a general comment on military record-keeping. Whether they’re actually doing it or not, it’s odd for them to claim they’re not doing it.
The other 20% are the far right battalions probably.
They probably want to be on the front lines even less. It’s those types that generally are the biggest cowards and they want someone else to do the actual fighting.
No. I read some study literature from a few years back, I think it was German. The most motivated to fight the eastern Ukraine were neo nazi battalions. The general public was not, even in 2014-15, I think it was. The Ukrainian military was in shambles. The study went something like this: incorporate the neo nazi battalions into the military and it will beef up forces and water down ideology (spoiler alert: it really didn’t). The neo nazi battalions were those who were trained in the US and in Ukraine by the CIA. They are probably the most capable and competent in the military. They are also motivated.
Immediately after the Russian invasion people writ large were outraged and scared. And of course a lot fled but some were motivated to join. But the people being dragged off the street at gunpoint now know they are being forced, untrained, to certain death, as crash test dummies.
Good point. I guess you have to be a crazy fucker to actually want to fight in a war.
They were recruiting worldwide before the war, including neonazi groups from the US, across Europe and allegedly as far as Australia, and the Christchurch mass shooter may have had connections with the Azov battalion.
“I guess you have to be a crazy fucker to actually want to fight in a war.”
Considering that virtually all wars are totally unnecessary for the defense of whatever country you live in, you’d kind of have to be crazy to want to fight in one.
Strangely, they do at least have human compassion for their own, even though they are racist and hate Russians. Some have refused to report deserters because for one, they are useless and put everyone else at risk for lack of training, but they also know these men are sentenced to die.
Agreed. Referring to establish military protocol as a rationale for Ukraine’s keeping records says absolutely nothing about whether Ukraine actually keeps records of where they drop their cluster ammunition.
My inclination, based on my own observations of Zelensky’s act, is to disbelieve everything that comes out of his operation.
Making records is one thing. Preserving them is another.
True.
And we have no idea how professional and well-organized their artillery units actually are.
Sort of like recording all the Biolabs that were operating in Ukraine.
Generally? Is this more authoritative in this instance than merely stating something is true?
Where does the Don Julio get his facts? He makes statements and we’re supposed to believe them? Is he an agent of the Ukrainian government?
The problem here is the absence of citations when someone asserts a given fact is in fact a fact.
I don’t have an opinion on whether or not the Kyiv regime is actually keeping good records of where cluster munitions are used.
I was just saying that keeping such records isn’t something dependent on the munitions being cluster munitions, or the need to clean up later, or whatever. It’s just a thing that is, or at least should be, done, so it’s unsurprising that Zelenskyy would say, with a straight face, that it’s being done.
As far as Julio is concerned, if it’s not coming from CNN, MSNBC or other Gov’ment sources, it has to be a lie.
Cite? Stating “facts” doesn’t count when you only pull them out of your behind.
Are there any banned weapons the USA is party to the treaty?
If the USA is party of such a treaty they would break it anyway.
Well, Duh.
“Official Suggests Ukraine Is Not Tracking Where It’s Using US Cluster Bombs -The
Biden administration said it received assurances from Ukraine that it
will closely track where the civilian-killing munitions are used”
The most corrupt government in Europe is not telling the most corrupt government in North America where they are using cluster bombs on civilians.
Both Zelensky and Joey Biden are now War Criminals!!!
Bush 2 was a proven war criminal in the Iraq war, he and 7 members of his admin were tried in absentia by Malaysia and convicted, proceedings submitted to the UN, no action taken. Obama’s war crimes with his kill list drone strikes were occasionally referenced as “highly likely.” Trump’s assassination of Solimani provided no evidence of the “imminent threat” the US justified the killing under UN Charter, thus, t00, likely a war crime.
Ukraine has been committing war crimes, targeting and killing civilians, in the Donbas for 9 years with the US funding and supplying weapons for those acts.
The original ICC prosecutor who opened the 2003 investigation of US war crimes in Afghanistan found reasonable evidence of torture, rape and sexual violence by US forces and the CIA at it’s black site. That prosecutor was replaced and the new prosecutor exempted the US from the investigation for “a lack of resources” in the court. However several months later that very prosecutor fortuitously found the resources to investigate Russia, and in record time – evidence, issuing an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes 🙂
Yes, Virginia, that’s how war crimes work in our postmodern 21st century.
Was it a slow day for WAPO? They had nothing else to do than publish a stupidly polished piece of turd disguised as denouncing Zelensky while celebrating Biden’s moral superiority? So Zelensky is the real Nord Stream Bomber and he is now refusing to do his homework? Did he also do something to Jimmy Hoffa? (Sarcasm)
That was GREAT sarcasm! 😁
Thanks!
Amerikkka sends cluster bombs; Not-so-Great Britain sends depleted uranium. Who the f*ck’s going to WANT this country by the time foreign interventionists are done with it?
Well, it was an absurd requirement to begin with, and if the Ukrainians really did make that promise they were either lying through their teeth or just telling us what we want to hear.
The real fool is Biden for believing them. But where the hell were his “military experts” during this conversation? Milley isn’t a genius, but he’s been around the military long enough to know this was a fool’s promise.