{"id":242188,"date":"2023-08-14T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=242188"},"modified":"2023-08-13T09:03:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T08:03:23","slug":"us-cluster-munitions-will-bring-more-pain-and-death-to-donbass-civilians-but-washington-doesnt-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/08\/us-cluster-munitions-will-bring-more-pain-and-death-to-donbass-civilians-but-washington-doesnt-care\/","title":{"rendered":"US Cluster Munitions Will Bring More Pain and Death to Donbass Civilians, but Washington Doesn’t Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kiev will use its newly received weapons to target residential areas, just as it has for the past nine years.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

FILE PHOTO: US-made 155mm cluster munitions \u00a9 Handout \/ DVIDS \/ AFP<\/p><\/div>\n

1 Aug 2023 – <\/em>The recent US decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine is immoral, unethical, and criminal. We\u2019ve already seen the horrific results of the use of such weapons \u2013 civilians mutilated and murdered (often decades later)\u00a0in Iraq and Southeast Asia<\/a>, for example, and in Lebanon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

In addition to the ethical reasons not to send these weapons to Ukraine, there are pragmatic reasons why, from a military perspective. They are pointless for Ukraine, in spite of Western promises<\/a> that they will \u201cdo more damage across a larger area than standard unitary artillery shells by releasing bomblets, or submunitions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In reality<\/a>, while covering a wider area than a conventional high explosive munition, the cluster bomblets do not inflict more powerful damage, certainly not against Russian fortified positions. Their use is mainly for targeting troops in the open and lightly armoured vehicles. Not a game changer for Kiev.<\/p>\n

According to<\/a> former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter, \u201cthese are the worst weapon in the world for trench warfare. With trench warfare, you need a high explosive round that collapses bunkers, that collapses trenches.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

If the US knows that cluster munitions won\u2019t change facts on the ground for Ukraine, why is it sending them? Because, as President Joe Biden himself has\u00a0said<\/a>, Ukraine is \u201crunning out of\u00a0 ammunition and we\u2019re low on it.\u201d<\/em> So, the US might as well offload its old stock of cluster munitions. They will not, as Biden claimed, \u201cstop those tanks from rolling.\u201d<\/em> Nor will they \u2013 as the Biden administration claims \u2013 \u201csave civilian lives.\u201d<\/em> They will almost certainly be used to kill, maim, and terrorize more Donbass civilians immediately and for years to come.<\/p>\n

US Colonel Douglas Macgregor has emphasized that<\/a> the cluster munitions have a high dud rate. According to Ritter<\/a>, close to 40% of them fail to explode. Macgregor also highlighted how children are \u201cattracted to these bright shiny objects that look like baseballs,\u201d<\/em> so insidious is their design.<\/p>\n

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan assures us that\u00a0<\/em>Kiev\u00a0will not misuse the clusters. He claims<\/a> that \u201cUkraine is committed to post-conflict de-mining efforts to mitigate any potential harm to civilians,\u201d<\/em> and that \u201cUkraine has provided written assurances that it is going to use these in a very careful way that is aimed at minimizing any risk to civilians.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The US\u00a0never signed the Convention<\/a>\u00a0on Cluster Munitions \u2013 which prohibits all use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions \u2013 but didn\u2019t mind virtue signalling its abhorrence of them when it lobbed accusations against Russia (also not a signatory of the convention) on February 28, 2022, with Biden\u2019s then press secretary, Jen Psaki, calling<\/a> the use of cluster munitions a potential \u201cwar crime.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As usual, it\u2019s a heinous war crime<\/a> when a US enemy supposedly<\/em> does it, but not when an ally \u2013 or the US itself \u2013 actually does. As for Ukraine\u2019s feeble promises to not use the cluster munitions against civilians, it has already been doing so since 2014.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s history of cluster-bombing civilians<\/h2>\n

By way of a personally witnessed example, in late March 2022, I visited the site<\/a> of a Ukrainian missile attack that earlier that month had killed 22 civilians and injured 33 more<\/a>. Because the Ukrainian-fired Tochka-U missile was intercepted, not all of its 50 cassettes of cluster munitions inside exploded in the city streets. Otherwise, the bloodbath would have been much worse. Then, in April 2022, Ukrainian forces targeted a railway station in Kramatorsk, likewise firing a Tochka-U with a cluster munition, killing a reported<\/a> 50 people. Western media predictably accused Russia of the war crime, although investigations showed the missile emanated from Ukrainian-held territory<\/a> to the southwest.<\/p>\n

But like most of Kiev’s war crimes against Donbass civilians, its use of cluster munitions didn\u2019t start in 2022. Back in 2014, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on<\/a> Ukrainian government forces\u2019 use of cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city. An October 2 attack on the centre of Donetsk that included the use of cluster munition rockets killed an employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).<\/p>\n

The New York Times likewise reported<\/a> that on several occasions in October 2014, \u201cthe Ukrainian Army appears to have fired cluster munitions into the heart of Donetsk, unleashing a weapon banned in much of the world into a rebel-held city with a peacetime population of more than one million.\u201d<\/em> Citing physical evidence and interviews with witnesses and victims, the newspaper wrote there were \u201cclear signs that cluster munitions had been fired from the direction of army-held territory.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Ukrainian \u2018petal mines\u2019 continue to maim<\/h2>\n

But these aren\u2019t the only clusters Ukraine has fired on Donbass civilians. In fact, over the course of last year, I documented the aftermath of Ukraine firing rockets containing cassettes of internationally-banned PFM-1 \u201cpetal\u201d mines, over 300 of the mines per rocket.<\/p>\n

Due to their design, they generally glide to the ground without exploding, until someone or something steps on or otherwise disturbs them.<\/p>\n

According to authorities<\/a> in the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic (DPR), Ukraine began firing these tiny, indiscriminate mines on March 6, 2022, during the battles for Mariupol, and then from May 18, 2022, into DPR and Kharkov Region settlements.<\/p>\n

Since first documenting<\/a> the aftermath of Ukraine\u2019s use of the mines in\u00a0central Donetsk<\/a>\u00a0in late July, 2022, I\u2019ve interviewed<\/a> victims, and reported on\u00a0the painstaking work<\/a> of Russian sappers to locate and destroy the mines. As of July 25 this year, 124 civilians have been<\/a> injured by the mines, including ten children. Three civilians died as a result of their injuries.<\/p>\n

Western weapons\u00a0used to kill\u00a0Donbass civilians<\/h2>\n

It should be mentioned that over the course of its now nine-year war against Donbass, Ukraine has been using conventional NATO munitions to slaughter and maim<\/a> civilians. The high explosive shells Ukraine fires throughout Donbass cities and towns, but also countless times in the very heart of Donetsk, tear people apart, leaving mangled bodies and remains<\/a> on streets and sidewalks, and in marketplaces<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On July 22, Ukrainian forces allegedly shelled Russian journalists<\/a> in Zaporozhye Region with cluster munitions, killing one and injuring three others.<\/p>\n

These deliberate attacks on the media, on civilians\u2019 homes<\/a>, hospitals, infrastructure, and on civilians<\/a> themselves should be condemned as loudly as Ukraine\u2019s firing of petal mines and of cluster munitions in general. But the US announcement that it would send cluster munitions to Ukraine resulted in some mild tutting from other Western nations, but no seriously strong condemnation. Canada is one of the nations voicing at least some objection to sending cluster bombs, the leadership in Ottawa probably feeling it ought to mildly protest, given Canada\u2019s convention.<\/p>\n

The Canadian government recently stated<\/a> that it is fully against the use of cluster munitions and is \u201ccommitted to putting an end to the effects cluster munitions have on civilians \u2013 particularly children.\u201d<\/em> Yet aside from polite grumblings regarding the US clusters, I\u2019ve seen no Canadian condemnation of Ukraine\u2019s repeated use of cluster munitions on the civilians of Donbass.<\/p>\n

But the real criminals here are the US government, which knows sending its cluster munitions won\u2019t actually help Ukraine fight the Russian military in any tangible way, but that it is highly likely Ukraine will instead use them against Donbass civilians. Apparently, that\u2019s just fine with the crocodile-tear-crying US hypocrites.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). <\/i>Her writings can be found on her blog, <\/i>In Gaza<\/i><\/a><\/span>. <\/i>Email: <\/em>evakbartlett2017@gmail.com<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – rt.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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