‘They’re Running Out of Ammo’: Putin on US Move to Send Cluster Bombs to Ukraine
07:46 GMT 16.07.2023 (Updated: 13:37 GMT 16.07.2023)
© Sputnik / Aleksey Babushkin
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The Biden administration unveiled a new military assistance package for Ukraine on July 7, which included cluster bombs. The lethal weapons are banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which has been ratified by 123 countries, excluding the US and Ukraine, and several other nations.
The US decided to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine because the Western-fueled proxy war against Russia is running low on ammo, President Vladimir Putin told local media.
“They [the United States] are doing this not because of 'the good life', but because they are running low on ammunition in general," the head of state said, answering a question from a Russian journalist.
The Russian leader recalled that Washington previously referred to the use of cluster bombs as a "crime."
"As for cluster munitions, the US administration itself provided an assessment of these munitions with comments by its staff some time ago, when the use of cluster munitions was called a crime by the US administration itself. This is how I think it should be regarded," he said.
Moscow reserves the right to respond accordingly in case of cluster munitions use against the country, emphasized the Russian president.
"Of course, if they are used against us, we reserve the right to mirror actions," Putin said in the interview for Russian television.
He underscored that Russia, which has various kinds of cluster munitions, has not yet needed to resort to using the lethal weapons.
“Russia has in its possession a sufficient stockpile of various types of cluster munitions. Until now, we have not used them… we did not need to, despite also previously experiencing a shortage of ammunition,” Putin noted.
11 July 2023, 17:36 GMT
The US-pledged cluster munitions have already been delivered to the Kiev regime, the Pentagon confirmed on Thursday. Lt Gen Douglas Sims, Joint Staff J3 director of operations, said that the bombs “have indeed been delivered to Ukraine at this point.”
The Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to the Russian military, have previously resorted to the use of the controversial cluster munitions for shelling Donbass, in particular Donetsk. According to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, this indicates that the goal of the Ukrainian military is to kill a maximum number of civilians.
Cluster bombs are extremely deadly containing dozens or hundreds of explosive submunitions, or bomblets, and are designed to maximize damage to enemy forces across an area of up to several hundred square meters.
14 July 2023, 02:32 GMT
Earlier in the month, President Joe Biden said the United States would provide cluster bombs to Ukraine as part of its military aid package to the Kiev regime worth $800 million for a temporary period while the US industrial base produces more 155mm artillery shells. Previously, Biden and other administration officials officially let slip that the US defense industrial base had run into difficulties replenishing the tens of billions of dollars in weapons sent to Ukraine to fight Russia.
The 46th president added that he had consulted with Washington's allies and partners about his decision on cluster bombs, and that they understood the reason for the move.
The US has used cluster munitions extensively in its military operations stretching back nearly six decades, dropping hundreds of millions of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as during the 1991 Gulf War, and on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, too.
Multiple US allies, human rights advocates and anti-war groups, in addition to the UN and Moscow, have condemned Washington’s decision to send howitzer-launched DPICM cluster bombs to Ukraine.
Russia has warned that the delivery of cluster munitions to Kiev marks another major escalation of the Ukrainian crisis. Military experts and human rights groups have expressed fears about the Kiev regime using the US-provided cluster munitions to terror bomb civilians in the Donbass and elsewhere, as they have already done this using other NATO-provided weapons, such as long-range 155 mm artillery systems, HIMARS rockets, and missiles, on tens of thousands of occasions over the past year and a half.
The Ukrainian government offered assurances in writing to Washington "on the responsible use of DPICMs, including that they will not use the rounds in civilian-populated urban environments, and that they will record where they use these rounds, which will simplify later demining efforts,” Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said during a briefing Friday. However, both Russian officials and military experts who sat down to talk to Sputnik have pointed to Kiev’s track record of using the NATO-supplied weapons as testimony that speaks for itself.
