The United States last week secretly shipped a new long-range missile system to Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces immediately used the weapons to attack a Russian military airfield in Crimea last Wednesday and Russian troops in the country’s southeast overnight on Tuesday, according to a senior U.S. official.
The United States previously supplied Ukraine with a version of the Army Tactical Missile Systems — known as ATACMS — armed with wide-spreading cluster munitions that can travel 100 miles.
But Ukraine has long coveted the system’s longer-range version, with a range of about 190 miles. That can reach deeper into occupied Ukraine, including Crimea, a hub of Russian air and ground forces, and supply nodes for Moscow’s forces in the country’s southeast.
Overnight Tuesday, Ukraine used the longer-range missiles to strike Russian troops in the port city of Berdiansk on the Sea of Azov, the senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
Isn‘t cluster munition considered illegal/ a war crime?
There is a Convention on Cluster Munitions but many of the world’s largest military powers are not signatories to it, including all of the top five by expenditure in America, China, Russia, India, and Saudi Arabia. Ukraine is also not a signatory.
Others already answered properly on the legality.
The US cluster munitions (dpicm) have a dud/failure rate of around 5%. The Russian cluster munitions a dud/failure rate of around 30-40%.
The main reason for not using cluster munitions is with a high dud rate it covers the land in unexploded ordenance. And in the past limited conflicts this was a real issue… low intensity fights in areas with a lot of civilians. The chance of some kid playing and finding some UXO is horrible. But Ukraine is positional warfare, trenches, and more UXO around the battlefields that anyone can imagine. A few more won’t matter on that balance… but the DPICM are very valuable to the Ukranians to fend off Russians.
The US has said in their doctrine that precision from artillery is preferred above blanket firepower, but there is a current request from the arms industry to provide a round with a 1% dud rate. As the cluster munitions serve a purpose.
It helps that when one uses them on their own land, they are more likely to carefully track where they were used and can conduct cleanup operations when feasible.
Maybe, but tracking is probably not enough. Future generations of Ukranian kids will be taught in school what UXO looks like and to steer clear and warn an adult.
The cleanup operation will be massive… Here I hope that drones and machine learning can help spot the ordenance at scale… but the clean up of this war will last longer than the war itself.
Kinda. Importantly, the Convention on Cluster Munitions was not ratified by the US, Ukraine, or Russia. There isn’t any legal issue there.
Ukraine and Russia have both been using cluster munitions and the US has previously provided cluster munitions to Ukraine. They work well, they are getting used.
No. The US, Ukraine, and Russia aren’t signatories to the convention on cluster munitions.
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Only in countries that signed the treaty.