Cluster munitions are a matter for individual countries, says NATO’s secretary general.
US allies on Friday reacted cautiously to reports that the Biden administration said it would supply Ukraine with cluster munitions, widespread weapons that often inflict serious injuries on civilians, especially children.
While not criticizing the United States or opposing the move, Germany and France said they would not follow suit, pointing to an international treaty they have signed that prohibits the use, stockpiling or transfer of such weapons . The United States, Russia and Ukraine have not signed the treaty known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
“Germany has also signed the treaty; for us this is not an option,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters in Bern, Switzerland.
The French Foreign Ministry also referred to the treaty, known as the Oslo Convention, saying that France “has pledged not to produce or use cluster munitions and to discourage their use”. But a spokeswoman for the ministry noted in response to a reporter’s question that neither the United States nor Ukraine were bound by the treaty.
“We understand the decision made by the United States to help Ukraine exercise its self-defense against Russia’s illegal aggression,” she said.
President Biden’s approval of supplying weapons to Ukraine, which Kiev has long sought, sharply separates him from many of the United States’ closest allies, complicating efforts by allies to show unity at a NATO summit in Lithuania next week.
While top US national security officials have reservations about supplying the weapons, they believe they have little choice but to send them to Ukraine, which risks running out of the conventional artillery rounds it needs to fight Russia. according to people familiar with the discussions.
On Friday, Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said Russia has been using cluster munitions since the beginning of the war and Ukraine “will not use these munitions in a foreign country.”
“This is their land they’re defending,” Mr. Sullivan said. “These are their citizens they protect, and they are motivated to use whatever weapon system they have in a way that minimizes risk to those citizens.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the military alliance had no formal position on the use of cluster munitions in combat. .
“It is up to individual allies to make decisions about the supply of weapons and military supplies to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told journalists at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “So this is for governments to decide – not for NATO as an alliance.”
Russian Ambassador to Belarus Boris Gryzlov called the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine an “act of desperation”.
“The ‘hawks’ in the West have realized that the much-advertised counter-offensive by the Ukrainian forces did not go according to plan, so they are trying at all costs to at least give it some impetus,” he told the paper. news agency TASS.
Cluster munitions scatter small bombs that sometimes fail to detonate when they hit the ground, only to detonate years later when disturbed by civilians. But officials have said the Biden administration now believes the ammunition is the best way to kill Russians dug into trenches and block Ukraine’s counter-offensive to retake territory. A US official said Thursday it was now clear the weapons were “100 percent necessary” to meet battlefield needs.
Mr Stoltenberg said that both Russia and Ukraine were already using cluster munitions. The New York Times has documented Russia’s extensive use of cluster munitions in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Ukraine has also used them in attempts to retake Russian-held territories, according to human rights monitors, the United Nations, and reports from The Times.
“Russia uses cluster missions in their brutal offensive war to invade another country, while Ukraine uses it to defend itself,” Stoltenberg said.