Ukraine has been seeking cluster bombs from the US to use in its war against Russian forces and is now asking for a type of the controversial munition that they want to adapt so they can be dropped from drones, Reuters reported on Monday.
According to House Reps. Adam Smith (D-WA) and Jason Crow (D-CO), Ukraine is seeking the MK-20, an air-delivered cluster bomb. They said Ukrainian officials were asking members of Congress to persuade the White House to sign off on the delivery during the recent Munich Security Conference.
Cluster munitions scatter small bombs over large areas, making them more indiscriminate than other munitions. According to Reuters, the MK-20 releases 240 dart-like submunitions or bomblets after being launched.
The bomblets in cluster munitions often don’t explode on impact, making them a huge danger to civilians who come across them, similar to land mines. The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions that bans the weapons has over 100 signatories, but the US, Russia, and Ukraine are not parties to the treaty.
Since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions. Kyiv was also accused of using the bombs in populated areas of Donestk back in 2014.
While the US hasn’t banned cluster bombs, its forces haven’t used them since one known incident in Yemen in 2009. The US had been producing and selling cluster bombs to its allies until a few years ago. In 2016, Textron Systems Corporation stopped producing MK-20s when the US stopped selling them to Saudi Arabia. But a congressional aide told Reuters that there are about one million of the bombs in US military stockpiles.
Sen. Lindsey Graham also said that Ukrainian officials were pushing for US lawmakers to pressure the Biden administration to provide cluster bombs in Munich. Graham favors sending the munitions and said he would lobby for them this week. Besides the MK-20s, Ukraine also wants 155mm cluster artillery shells.
Rep. Smith said he didn’t think that the Biden administration would sign off on the delivery of the controversial munitions. Rep. Crow said he might support arming Ukraine with the MK-20s if Kyiv would remove the bomblets and “use them in a non-cluster employment.”
Arming Ukraine is counterproductive as counterproductive was the coup 2014 itself. By bringing neo-Nazi regime in Kiev to power and starting, first economic and then a proxy war against Russia, they planned to ruin Russian economy and ultimately to organize the regime change in Moscow, so in the end they could be able to isolate China completely. Everything went wrong from the beginning. First Crimea changed hands, then 4 oblasts more joined Russia. The next escalation will increase Russian territory even more and make Russian population by several millions bigger.
China profited greatly from this war. The export of Russian mineral resources turned from Europe to China. Russia/China alliance became much stronger than ever before. The rest of the world sided mostly with Russia/China and a very unpleasant situation is created. On one side we have the declining white population of former colonial powers, on the other side – the fast increasing non-white population of the former British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Holland colonies which remember very well who robbed them all those centuries.
I wish you would stop regurgitating Kremlin propagaanda. The Zelenskyy regime has its problems. But it is not a neo-Nazi regime. Seven million Ukrainians fought against the Nazis in the Red Army. Most Ukrainians hate the Nazis. But Putin never cared about deNazifying Ukraine. In fact, Putin placed a wreath on the grave of the anti-semitic White Russian general Anton Denikin whose White Russian army was responsible for massacring between 50,000 and 150,000 members of the first Abrahamic faith in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War (1919-1922). Putin in 2009 urged Russians to read the parts of Denikin’s diaries where Denikin proclaims that Ukraine is forever a part of Russia.
Naftali Bennett who discussed Ukraine with Putin said that Putin doesn’t care about de-Nazification. This is a revanchist war of conquest where Putin aims to reverse the decline of Russian imperialism since the Soviet Union dissolved. Putin’s goal is to push NATO back to its 1997 borders and to re-establish the power of the Sovier Union and the glory of the Czars. I all all for pushing back NATO, but I don’t support a war to restore Russian imperialism.
“Russian imperialism”? Whatever degree of “imperialism” Russia possesses in its national blood, you can bet the USA has INFINITELY more in its blood! THAT is the basis of this war, not Russia’s “imperialism”!
There’s plenty of imperialism to go around.
The basis of this war is two declining empires raging against the dying of their light.
The USSR is already dead, but Wash. is unrelenting in keeping the illusion of indispensable nation alive for more US corp. profits. It’s all about money, once you ask qui bono and follow the money, it’s obvious that’s what it’s all about.
Russian tsarist empire was more like EU empire rather than British and French empires of 18-19 centuries. Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine joined Russian Empire by their own will. Russia never conquered them. Armenia and Georgia sided with Russia against Ottoman Empire. The same about Moldova. Ukraine sided with Russia against Poland. Baltic republics were bought from Sweden. It was just lands populated by people who knew nothing about running their own state. The war against Great Tartary was a civil war; on both sides there were mostly Russians.
Unlike European empires, Russia never used racism or Nazism for promotion of imperial interests.
True, Kiev isn’t a Nazi regime, but their use of the Nazi faction there against Russia is obvious. But, the irony will be once the Ukraine war is over, the Nazis there will turn on the Zionist faction in Kiev. They do know the long range plan for the Ukraine is to become a puppet state for Israel as both a place to escape to and use for farming, as the Ukraine was before the war started.
“Kiev isn’t a Nazi regime” – what is your definition of Nazi? Only the extermination of Jewish culture and Jewish people is Nazism? When one does the same against Russians it is not Nazism? Such an approach in itself smells very strong of Nazism.
ignore the clown
i think i’m gonna puke…
“vast amounts” of US hardware ready to be shipped from poland to ukraine
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-vast-expanse-us-military-hardware-positioned-polish-port
To me that reeks like the need of a desperado.
They won’t signoff until they do. Just like the request for other munitions and even tanks were denied until they agreed to send them. Keep pushing for WW3, you’ll get it.
All it takes is one bomblet to blow up a kid who picks it up or accidentally kicks it. That the Ukraine wants to dismantle the bombs for the contents makes no difference- they’re still dangerous to civilains and soldiers alike and they shouldn’t even have the things. That we manufactured them and sold them to Saudi Arabia- knowing they are banned munitions- just shows that we can’t be trusted with them either.
“Ukraine Wants the US to Provide Cluster Bombs to Use With Drones Cluster bombs endanger civilians by scattering small bombs across a large area and have been banned by over 100 countries”
Operative two words: “Ukraine Wants” makes them the equivalent of a spoiled young child who wants every piece of candy and every toy.
“Ukraine Wants” – the current Kiev regime was established by Americans. It can’t exist without American money. The idea that Zelensky is the leader of an independent state is ridiculous. Ukrainian far-right organizations are also dependent upon American support.
I see my comment about Nazism disappeared.