Opinion: Sending cluster bombs to Ukraine is a very bad idea

Editor’s Note: Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a global affairs analyst currently based in Odesa. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.

For the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than 500 days ago, hairline fractures are beginning to appear in the western alliance’s approach to arming Ukraine.

On Friday, after months of debate, US President Joe Biden announced that, as part of a new $800 million military aid package, the administration will be sending controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine. The announcement prompted expressions of unease from key US allies, including Canada, Spain and New Zealand, as well as some rumblings from Germany.

“No to cluster bombs and yes to the legitimate defense of Ukraine, which we understand should not be carried out with cluster bombs,” said Spain’s Defense Minister Margarita Robles. New Zealand said the munitions could cause “huge damage to innocent people.”

The controversy, which is occurring as Biden takes center stage at a crucial high-stakes NATO summit in Lithuania, could not have come at a worse time, as divisions among allies have also been emerging over fast-tracking Ukraine’s NATO membership.

While differences over if and at what speed Ukraine joins NATO could be resolved in Vilnius – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday it’s “absurd” a firm timeline hasn’t yet been agreed to  –  the rift over the cluster bombs could take longer to bridge.

Discord among US allies over cluster munitions might have been avoided altogether, had western capitals moved more swiftly to provide Ukraine with lethal weaponry. The time that it took western leaders to grow the spine to do so allowed Russia to harden its defenses and slow Ukraine’s advance.

And why send cluster munitions, when what Ukraine really needs is long-range precision missiles, such as US-made surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, which have a range similar to the British Storm Shadow missiles already approved for Ukraine? Meanwhile, French President Emannuel Macron has said France will supply long range missiles too to Ukraine, with a range just short of the ATACMS Ukraine has asked for.

A real head scratcher

In total, the United States has committed more than $38.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including more than $37.6 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked and brutal invasion on February 24, 2022, according to the Defense Department. The US is the largest backer of Kyiv, which pretty much makes it the pace car for western assistance, so Washington’s decision to send weapons which many of its key allies strongly object to is a real head scratcher.

The weapons in question are banned by more than 120 countries — including 23 NATO member states but not the US or Ukraine — under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. In June, a coalition of 38 organizations that included Human Rights Watch and the United States Fund for UNICEF urged the White House to “remain steadfast” against any cluster munitions transfers.

“Cluster munitions are among the most harmful weapons to civilians, as they are designed to disperse indiscriminately across a wide area and often fail to explode on initial use, littering communities with unstable unexploded ordnance and causing devastating harm to civilians, and especially children, years after a conflict ends,” the coalition said in its letter.

In fact, deadly cluster submunitions still lie dormant in Southeast Asia decades after they were dropped and remain a threat to civilians, opponents of the weapons say. UNICEF research has shown that about 40% of victims of cluster bombs are children who are injured or killed long after the guns are silenced.

I have spent years as a UNICEF spokesperson, including as global spokesperson in Geneva, defending the organization’s stance against cluster munitions for the simple reason of the great threat they pose to children long after warring parties have abandoned the battlefield. And if you’ve ever seen a child badly mangled from picking up unexploded ordnance, it’s an image that is difficult to forget.

Ukrainians running out of ammunition

In a CNN interview that aired on Sunday, Biden defended his decision, saying the Ukrainians “are running out of ammunition” and that there is a greater downside if Kyiv is not given what it needs.

“This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” Biden said. “And so, what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to — not permanently — but to allow for this transition period, while we get more 155 weapons, these shells, for the Ukrainians,” he said.

“But the main thing is they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now — keep them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas — or they don’t. And I think they needed them,” Biden added, in comments that were echoed by some experts in the region.

“Right now the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition … just at a time when they are trying to push the Russians out of their country. We don’t have deep stocks of regular artillery ammunition. To keep the Ukrainians from running out and being defeated, we must send them cluster munitions. The Ukrainians have every incentive to protect their own civilians by keeping the Russians out,” former US ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, told me.

The President’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan made similar remarks on Friday, saying that there is “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.”

US officials also said the stockpile designated for Ukraine has a “dud rate” — the rate at which weapons fail to explode upon landing — of 2.35% or lower. Critics say, however, that the actual dud rate is as high as 23%.

With cluster bombs, duds — weapons that fail to detonate — can remain undetected in the soil for weeks or years, only to explode when civilians inadvertently step on or pick up the explosive device, grievously injuring or killing them. The Red Cross and other groups have noted that children are among the most vulnerable to these weapons, which they often mistake for balls or other handheld toys because of their size and shape.

Russia’s inhumane war tactics limit the West’s options

But this is an issue which can be seen from many different perspectives. Ukraine is in an existential fight for its survival. As soon as we thought we had seen the basement of Russia’s humanity — whether striking maternity hospitals or leaving hundreds of civilians dead in the streets or in mass graves — even as they steadfastly deny wrongdoing, they tend to surprise us with something worse.

Against this backdrop, Ukraine deserves access to pretty much everything available from western stockpiles. It should also be recognized that conventions, such as the ones banning cluster munitions, originated after the end of the Cold War — and long before most people realized the territorial ambitions and brutality of the new occupants of the Kremlin.

However, had western allies moved earlier to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons — instead of responding the way Canada did, relying on sanctions in hopes of deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin — Ukraine would probably be in a far stronger position to push back Russian forces and would not have to resort to weapons which are reviled by so many.

What might have factored into Biden’s decision to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine is the growing signals out of Kyiv that the counteroffensive is not going as well as planned. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted as much last week in an interview in Odessa with CNN’s Erin Burnett.

Zelensky said during the interview that the delay in receiving western weaponry gave the Russians an advantage. He said it gave them “time and possibility to place more mines and prepare their defensive lines.” He added, “The later we start, the more difficult it will be for us.”

War forces leaders to make difficult decisions — with potentially devastating consequences on the battlefield. Unexploded munitions that soon will be used in massively more quantities by both sides in this conflict, endangering the lives of civilians, including young children.

Cluster munitions could bring Kyiv a temporary battlefield advantage. Once the war is over, however, the potentially deadly legacy of these indiscriminate weapons will remain embedded in Ukrainian soil for years to come.

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