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The White House has confirmed that Ukraine is using US cluster bombs against Russian forces in the country.
National Security Spokesman John Kirby said initial feedback suggested they were being used “effectively” on Russian defensive positions and operations.
Cluster bombs scatter multiple bomblets and are banned by more than 100 states due to their threat to civilians.
The US agreed to supply them to boost Ukrainian ammunition supplies.
Ukraine has promised the bombs will only be used to dislodge concentrations of Russian enemy soldiers.
“They are using them appropriately,” Mr Kirby said. “They’re using them effectively and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and Russia’s defensive manoeuvring. I think I can leave it at that.”
The US decided to send cluster bombs after Ukraine warned that it was running out of ammunition during its summer counter-offensive, which has been slower and more costly than many had hoped.
President Joe Biden called the decision “very difficult”, while its allies the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Spain opposed their use.
The vast majority sent are artillery shells with a lower than 2.35% “dud rate”, a reference to the percentage of bomblets which do not explode immediately and can remain a threat for years.
The weapons are effective when used against troops in trenches and fortified positions, as they render large areas too dangerous to move around in until cleared.
Russia has used similar cluster bombs in Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion last year, including in civilian areas.
Reacting to the US decision to send the bombs, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had similar weapons and they would be used “if they are used against us”.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Ukrainian general in charge of operations in the country’s east, told the BBC last week that his forces needed the weapons to “inflict maximum damage on enemy infantry”.
“We’d like to get very fast results, but in reality it’s practically impossible. The more infantry who die here, the more their relatives back in Russia will ask their government ‘why?’”
He added however that cluster bombs would not “solve all our problems”.
He also acknowledged that their use was controversial, but added: “If the Russians didn’t use them, perhaps conscience would not allow us to do it too.”
What is your solution and who’d benefit from it the most?
I have no idea. I’m not in any position to judge. All I can say – over and over – is that anyone who thinks that war can be waged for good does not understand war. There are only less-worse outcomes for the people at the front, and mostly fun and profit for the people making the decisions.
And you know what? We need to break a taboo: the US is run by people for whom the stakes are pride. Biden isn’t the worst of this crowd – that would be people like John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, etc – but Biden and Anthony Blinken and their cohort are all still immersed in a worldview where a whole generation of traumatized or wounded Ukrainian kids is a totally understandable price to pay to show the other world leaders that you’re the baddest bitch in the yard. And behind them are a huge crowd of American oligarchs who get so, so, so rich for each day a war goes on. The fact that pointing any of this out is taboo is just terrifying.
This is not a game, it’s a humanitarian crisis. I don’t know the solution, but I don’t think any of this is it.
the solution is easy. Hurt russia so much that they start negotiating on the terms of ukraine.
They started this war, not the americans, not the nato, it was russia who invaded this country 2014 and now wants to finish the job.
Your whole text makes me sick because it never addressed the russians as the evil force behind this war, so I don’t know if you are being ignorant, delusional or simply repeating russian propaganda by switching who is the foe and victim ins this war and stuffing it out with some pathetic quotes like “war is hell” over and over…
Really surprised that you did not quote Platon already…
Waging war to stop genocide is good. When your enemy refuses to negotiate in good faith, war is a necessary evil. What would the solution to the Third Reich have been if my grandparents didn’t take up arms to fight their warped sense of morality?
@andrewrgross @another_lemming
if you see someone unpacking a grenade to kill dozens of people through the lens of your rifle, do you shot ? Or is killing bad ?
A peace now, with russia getting away with territory is letting the killer go. How many grenade left for the following years ? russia won t stop here.
That last part “They won’t stop here” is an argument that has no boundaries. It justifies ALL actions. Any action. Nerve gas. Targeting civilian centers. Putting sanctions on medical supplies.
I consider myself a strong supporter of Ukraine’s defense efforts, but there have to be moments – like when we start embracing CLUSTER BOMBS that will kill Ukrainian civilians years from now! – that we have to just ask: “is any and every effort to support Ukraine the right now right now?”
This will end one day. We need to find the path there. Saying, “don’t discuss diplomacy yet” every time raises the question of WHEN is the right time to even think about an end game?
Also, will anyone be around for the reconstruction? All this talk is so short-sighted. Where is any plan to actually WIN the war, and resettle the displaced? And rebuild the homes and schools? I’ve seen people in this comment thread say that they don’t give shit if the land is even habitable after this, they just want Russians DEAD. That’s not supporting Ukraine, that’s … I don’t have words for what that is.
@andrewrgross
That is not what I said and you know it. You use a slipery slope fallacy here. I only said we can use the same weapon they have used since day one to recover ukrainian territories.
Do not try to make it look like you are the only one for peace, no one want peace more than Ukrainians. And their action they are open to diplomacy, but not to be ruled by a tyran.
I have my familiy in ukr, I am all to help russians rebuild after war as we did with germany, but for now: OUT
Alright. I hope they’re as safe as possible.
I am on board with creating less violence but I weight it with not creating the ground for more violence in the future. Would violence stop after getting ceasefire now? Won’t it repeat? When it started in 2014 but then came to a slow burning everyone forgot about, it set a precedent that one may do that with minimum repercussions, and so it restarted anew in 2022. And so it may once again until doing that would be impossible for one reason or another.
Global MIC is evil but that’s a different issue. It should, in my mind, being fought against with international treaties for disarmament and creating allianced armies like NATO so no one would have or need it’s own military. But it’s a long game and we are likely to die from heatwaves before we agree to give up bombs.