US President Biden To Send Controversial Cluster Munitions To Ukraine: Report

Cluster weapons detonate in the air over a target, scattering dozens to hundreds of tiny submunitions across a large region.

US President Joe Biden. ( Image Source :Getty )

President Biden has approved the deployment of US cluster bombs to Ukraine, with the weapons being drawn down from Defence Department inventories on Friday, Washington Post reported. The operation, which would circumvent US legislation forbidding the manufacturing, use, or transfer of cluster bombs with a failure rate greater than 1%, comes amid fears over Kyiv's sluggish counteroffensive against entrenched Russian forces and decreasing Western conventional artillery inventories.

It comes after months of internal government discussion over whether to deliver the contentious weapons, which are prohibited in the majority of countries throughout the world.

Cluster weapons detonate in the air over a target, scattering dozens to hundreds of tiny submunitions across a large region, according to Washington Post's report.

More than 120 nations have signed a treaty prohibiting their usage as cruel and indiscriminate, owing to high failure rates that leave the terrain littered with unexploded submunitions that imperil both friendly forces and civilians, often for decades after a combat ends. The US, Ukraine, and Russia, which is accused of using them extensively in Ukraine, are not signatories to the agreement. The convention has not been approved by eight of NATO's 31 members, including the United States.

While seeking anonymity, a defence official informed Washington Post: “We are aware of reports from several decades ago that indicate certain 155mm DPICMs have higher dud rates."

The Pentagon currently claims to have updated evaluations based on testing conducted as recently as 2020, with failure rates of no more than 2.35 percent. While it surpasses the 1% limit set by Congress every year since 2017, officials are "carefully selecting" bombs with a dud rate of 2.35 percent or less for deployment to Ukraine, according to Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, Washington Post reported.

The contents of the latest evaluations, according to the defence official, are "not releasable," including how, when, and where the tests were conducted, as well as whether they involved real fire exercises or virtual simulations. According to military guidelines, these weapons cannot be fired in training since they are part of war reserves.