Ukraine: Day after US’ offer, Ukraine says it will use cluster bombs along ‘defence lines’ – Times of India

KYIV: Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed a US decision to send cluster bombs to Kyiv, saying it would help to liberate Ukrainian territory but promised the munitions would not be used in Russia.
The US announced on Friday it would supply Ukraine with widely banned cluster munitions for its counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces.
Reznikov said the munitions would help save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, adding Ukraine would keep a strict record of their use and exchange information with its partners. “Our position is simple – we need to liberate our temporarily occupied territories and save the lives of our people,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.
“Ukraine will use these munitions only for the de-occupation of our internationally recognized territories. These munitions will not be used on the officially recognized territory of Russia.”
Cluster munitions are prohibited by more than 100 countries. They typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area. Those that fail to explode pose a danger for decades.
Moscow again criticised the US decision on Saturday, describing it as another “egregious” example of Washington’s “anti-Russian” course. “Another ‘wonder weapon’, which Washington and Kyiv are counting on without considering its grave consequences, will in no way affect the course of the special military operation, the goals and objectives of which will be fully achieved,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
Jake Sullivan, US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, sought on Friday to make the case for providing the arms to Ukraine to reclaim territory seized since Russia invaded in February 2022. “We recognize that cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance,” Sullivan told reporters. “But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians because Ukraine does not have enough artillery,” he said.
Reznikov said the military would not use cluster munitions in urban areas and would use them only “to break through the enemy defence lines”.
Russia, Ukraine, and the United States have not signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the production, stockpiling, use, and transfer of the weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, returning home from a visit to Turkey, brought with him five commanders of Ukraine’s former garrison in Mariupol, forced to live in Turkey under the terms of a prisoner exchange last year.
The commanders, lionised as heroes in Ukraine, led last year’s defence of the port, the biggest city Russia captured in its invasion. Thousands of civilians were killed inside Mariupol when Russian forces laid the city to waste during a three-month siege.The Ukrainian defenders, who held out in tunnels and bunkers under a steel plant, were finally ordered by Kyiv to surrender in May last year. Moscow freed some of them in September last year.