Biden Administration to Send Controversial Cluster Weapons to Ukraine

The Biden administration has decided to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, highly controversial weapons given the dangers they pose to civilians long after conflicts end. The decision is expected to be made public Friday. U.S. officials told The Messenger the weapons would be delivered to Ukraine in August.

Cluster munitions are projectiles that release smaller “submunitions” or bomblets that scatter across a wide area. Ukraine has been requesting them for months, both because their forces are running low on conventional munitions and because they might be particularly suited to helping Ukraine’s counteroffensive break through heavily fortified Russian lines. 

"Our military analysts have confirmed that [cluster munitions] would be useful especially against dug-in Russian positions on the battlefield," Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense focusing on Russia and Ukraine, told Congress last month.

But cluster munitions are probably also the most controversial weapons system provided to Ukraine thus far. The bomblets have a high failure rate, which means they don’t explode on impact and can linger unexploded long after the fighting ends. Since World War II, they have killed an estimated 56,500 to 86,500 civilians around the world. In recent years, the majority of those killed have been children, many in places like Laos and Lebanon where they were used decades ago. 

Cluster munitions are prohibited under an international treaty which has been joined by 123 countries. The United States, which left millions of cluster munitions behind in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, is not among them, and maintains a large stockpile of the weapons, though it has barely used them in decades.

Ukraine and Russia are also not members of the treaty, and cluster munitions have already been used extensively in this war, mainly by the Russians. According to the NGO Cluster Munitions Monitor, at least 689 Ukrainians were killed or wounded by Russian cluster munitions in the first half of 2022 alone. 

In a statement on Thursday, Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, called the Biden administration’s decision “escalatory, counterproductive, and only further increases the dangers to civilians caught in combat zones and those who will, someday, return to their cities, towns, and farms.”

The U.S. has been working to rush a broad range of weaponry to the battlefield in Ukraine to replenish supplies amid a counteroffensive that has been slow going, and has already involved heavy losses in both lives and equipment. From the early days of the war, the U.S. has often initially balked at sending weapons to Ukraine, only to relent and ultimately send them. Cluster munitions are one of the last weapons systems on the Ukrainian wishlist that the U.S. was still reluctant to send. One remaining one are long-range ATACMS missiles, which the administration is also reportedly considering providing.