The White House has confirmed that Ukraine is using US cluster bombs against Russian forces in the country.
National Security Spokesman John Kirby said initial feedback suggested they were being used “effectively” on Russian defensive positions and operations.
Cluster bombs scatter multiple bomblets and are banned by more than 100 states due to their threat to civilians.
The US agreed to supply them to boost Ukrainian ammunition supplies.
Ukraine has promised the bombs will only be used to dislodge concentrations of Russian enemy soldiers.
“They are using them appropriately,” Mr Kirby said. “They’re using them effectively and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and Russia’s defensive manoeuvring. I think I can leave it at that.”
The US decided to send cluster bombs after Ukraine warned that it was running out of ammunition during its summer counter-offensive, which has been slower and more costly than many had hoped.
President Joe Biden called the decision “very difficult”, while its allies the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Spain opposed their use.
The vast majority sent are artillery shells with a lower than 2.35% “dud rate”, a reference to the percentage of bomblets which do not explode immediately and can remain a threat for years.
The weapons are effective when used against troops in trenches and fortified positions, as they render large areas too dangerous to move around in until cleared.
Russia has used similar cluster bombs in Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion last year, including in civilian areas.
Reacting to the US decision to send the bombs, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had similar weapons and they would be used “if they are used against us”.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Ukrainian general in charge of operations in the country’s east, told the BBC last week that his forces needed the weapons to “inflict maximum damage on enemy infantry”.
“We’d like to get very fast results, but in reality it’s practically impossible. The more infantry who die here, the more their relatives back in Russia will ask their government ‘why?’”
He added however that cluster bombs would not “solve all our problems”.
He also acknowledged that their use was controversial, but added: “If the Russians didn’t use them, perhaps conscience would not allow us to do it too.”
War is hell. That statement is both true and has lost all meaning, because no one really feels it.
We should be negotiating a peace by now. The suffering of these cluster bombs cause is immeasurable, as is the general suffering of this war.
Imagine
spoiler
beating a puppy to death with a golf club
. Imagine the whole thing vividly, and then imagine
spoiler
pushing the pulpy body aside
and doing it again, and just repeating this exercise ad nausium for hours and hours. This is the kind of feeling we should experience when we read stories about this conflict, if we had any concept of what a war is. And when we debate whether to use cluster bombs, that’s like debating whether to use
spoiler
a nine iron or crush the puppy’s skull slowly with a boot
. One is definitely, definitely DEFINITELY WORSE, and should NEVER BE DONE, but both are awful and should make us so physically ill to think about that we would do anything at all – such as negotiate a ceasefire! – to avoid doing it.
Friendly reminder Russia is committing atrocities in the occupied territories. So any kind of negotiated “peace” that involves Ukraine giving up territory means them consigning all their citizens living there to torture, random executions, wanton sexual violence, having their children taken away, and worse!
That’s what you’re calling for when you advocate a “negotiated settlement”.
This reminds me of a time a few years ago when my husband and I were trying to sell a motorcycle. The short version is that we wanted $4k, and we get holding out, but the wait involved kept causing the motorcycle – which suffers when idle – to need further costly servicing before we finally sold it for $2k. Which was close to what we spent unnecessarily on servicing it while holding out for a better price.
The point is that you’re making some dangerous unexamined assumptions here. Let’s just remember that eventually, the fighting will end with a negotiation and a treaty. We don’t know what such a treaty would yield now, and we don’t know what it will yield if it happens later. We have no way of knowing that a treaty negotiated later is going to be better than one granted now.
More importantly, I don’t think you – or most of the people in this comment section – are factoring in the human cost to this war by the day. It’s probably not possible. It’s like picturing 200 billion ducks. Your brain is not capable of comprehending it.
I’m grateful I’m not responsible for doing this math and figuring out when the ideal trade off occurs, but it terrifies me that people are applying the same faulty logic that cost me $2k dollars when the stakes aren’t $2k, they are literally more human blood than our brains are capable of conceptualizing.
This isn’t some motorcycle, these are human beings that have had their land, lives and culture stolen from them.
The fact that the guy you replied to totally ignored all my points about, ya know, the ongoing genocide is fucking telling.
That guy is either a troll or is so naive it’s hilarious.
He’s happy to argue that Ukrainians should follow some sort of Marquess of Queensberry rules of war while Russia targets apartment buildings with missiles.
Just down vote him and move on.
What an idealistic and utopian view. A sovereign country has been invaded, it has the right to use weapons it deems necessary to defend itself. What’s so difficult about that? Russia can pack up and go home, then there will be peace.
Not to mention, Russian forces have been using these types of munitions, but with much higher dud rates, already.
It’s their soil. They can do what they want to it.
And the ruskies are using them in civilian targets.
Beyond that, know what else has a chance of exploding well after the war and injuring or killing someone?
You know what both Ukrain and Russia have already use many thousands more of than Ukraine has been issued cluster munitions?
You know what no one is moralizing about so hard they shit their pants?
::: Landmines :::
These are pretty words used to gloss over the truth: war is hell. No one but the profiteers (on all sides) win.
Total victory, sovereignty, defend ITSelf, like a country is a person… These are all the ancient terms used to justify dragging confused children from homes and shoving rifles into the hands of young men who deserve to be trying to lose their virginity instead of their legs.
War is hell. Every bomb, every bullet should be fired in the service of firing as few after it as possible.
What is your solution and who’d benefit from it the most?
I have no idea. I’m not in any position to judge. All I can say – over and over – is that anyone who thinks that war can be waged for good does not understand war. There are only less-worse outcomes for the people at the front, and mostly fun and profit for the people making the decisions.
And you know what? We need to break a taboo: the US is run by people for whom the stakes are pride. Biden isn’t the worst of this crowd – that would be people like John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, etc – but Biden and Anthony Blinken and their cohort are all still immersed in a worldview where a whole generation of traumatized or wounded Ukrainian kids is a totally understandable price to pay to show the other world leaders that you’re the baddest bitch in the yard. And behind them are a huge crowd of American oligarchs who get so, so, so rich for each day a war goes on. The fact that pointing any of this out is taboo is just terrifying.
This is not a game, it’s a humanitarian crisis. I don’t know the solution, but I don’t think any of this is it.
the solution is easy. Hurt russia so much that they start negotiating on the terms of ukraine.
They started this war, not the americans, not the nato, it was russia who invaded this country 2014 and now wants to finish the job.
Your whole text makes me sick because it never addressed the russians as the evil force behind this war, so I don’t know if you are being ignorant, delusional or simply repeating russian propaganda by switching who is the foe and victim ins this war and stuffing it out with some pathetic quotes like “war is hell” over and over…
Really surprised that you did not quote Platon already…
Waging war to stop genocide is good. When your enemy refuses to negotiate in good faith, war is a necessary evil. What would the solution to the Third Reich have been if my grandparents didn’t take up arms to fight their warped sense of morality?
@andrewrgross @another_lemming
if you see someone unpacking a grenade to kill dozens of people through the lens of your rifle, do you shot ? Or is killing bad ?
A peace now, with russia getting away with territory is letting the killer go. How many grenade left for the following years ? russia won t stop here.
That last part “They won’t stop here” is an argument that has no boundaries. It justifies ALL actions. Any action. Nerve gas. Targeting civilian centers. Putting sanctions on medical supplies.
I consider myself a strong supporter of Ukraine’s defense efforts, but there have to be moments – like when we start embracing CLUSTER BOMBS that will kill Ukrainian civilians years from now! – that we have to just ask: “is any and every effort to support Ukraine the right now right now?”
This will end one day. We need to find the path there. Saying, “don’t discuss diplomacy yet” every time raises the question of WHEN is the right time to even think about an end game?
Also, will anyone be around for the reconstruction? All this talk is so short-sighted. Where is any plan to actually WIN the war, and resettle the displaced? And rebuild the homes and schools? I’ve seen people in this comment thread say that they don’t give shit if the land is even habitable after this, they just want Russians DEAD. That’s not supporting Ukraine, that’s … I don’t have words for what that is.
@andrewrgross
That is not what I said and you know it. You use a slipery slope fallacy here. I only said we can use the same weapon they have used since day one to recover ukrainian territories.
Do not try to make it look like you are the only one for peace, no one want peace more than Ukrainians. And their action they are open to diplomacy, but not to be ruled by a tyran.
I have my familiy in ukr, I am all to help russians rebuild after war as we did with germany, but for now: OUT
Alright. I hope they’re as safe as possible.
I am on board with creating less violence but I weight it with not creating the ground for more violence in the future. Would violence stop after getting ceasefire now? Won’t it repeat? When it started in 2014 but then came to a slow burning everyone forgot about, it set a precedent that one may do that with minimum repercussions, and so it restarted anew in 2022. And so it may once again until doing that would be impossible for one reason or another.
Global MIC is evil but that’s a different issue. It should, in my mind, being fought against with international treaties for disarmament and creating allianced armies like NATO so no one would have or need it’s own military. But it’s a long game and we are likely to die from heatwaves before we agree to give up bombs.
Peace will happen when Russia removes itself from it’s sovereign neighbor. Until that happens, turn Russians into dog food.
You cannot give an inch.
Dogs shouldn’t be fed junk food.
Every war ends in a meeting. Negotiate a conplete Russian withdrawal, or Putin’s surrender. You can negotiate for anything, but fighting without talking while while communities are permanently displaced and traumatized is just sad evidence that defending Ukrainians lives or territory is no longer the US’s goal.
Are we doing this because we’re value Ukrainians? Or because we hate Russia?
There have been talks and negotiations. But if it’s clear again and again that there is no trust, where should these lead? If you know that any negotiation and agreement is unreliable, what’s the point? What’s the point of stopping fighting if this is just used as positioning by an enemy that doesn’t share your wish for peace or other values and doesn’t even respect your autonomy or self-determined identity? Think about the negotiations around Mariupol, where civilian evacuation routes were agreed upon by both parties to then be attacked. Or civilian infrastructure like Odessa just a few days ago and countless other examples.
I think your wish for peace is commendable, but it’s incredibly removed from reality.
It is common in wars to fight and talk at the same time. Sometimes talking is done via secret back channels which the public will not find out about until many years after the war.
It is not possible to only talk when fighting has stopped, because for fighting to stop, you either need to negotiate a ceasefire by talking, or one side has to be annihilated, and then there is no one left to talk to.
We’re arming Ukraine to preserve the rule based order established after War II that dictates sovereign nations cannot have their territory unilaterally annexed by another nation. Allowing this to happen without support to Ukraine would only tell other despots looking to start wars of conquest that they are allowed to do so without repercussion.
I’m on board with that basic premise, but when we start arming them with cluster bombs? It seems like we need to at least pump the breaks and check what our goals are and where we’re willing to go. What about nerve gas? Land minds? Aerial war in the Russian mainland? I think even the people who disagree with me surely have some boundaries that they’re not comfortable with. This seems like a point for use each to inquire how much devastation is productive for the people who actually bear the brunt of these choices.
I mean, these cluster bombs WILL kill innocent civilians after the war. Are they on board with that? I highly doubt they’ve signed off on this particularly strategy.
The West has already armed Ukraine with landmines. Western mines typically deactivate after a set amount of time. Nerve gas isn’t a useful weapon because you can’t control the wind. You’re positing a slippery slope, which is a fallacy as at every step of the way we are able to say “no, that’s not a good idea”. As for who is dealing with the brunt of the suffering from this war, the Ukrainians, polls indicate a supermajority of support for Zelenskyy. His government has indicated that they cannot negotiate with Russia at this time as they do not negotiate in good faith. They want Russia in a position where they’re incapable of violating any agreements they make rather than another situation like the Minsk Accords where Russia just bided their time and invaded even more extensively.
Ukraine already demanded that Putin in Russia withdraw several times. Putin has refused. End of discussion.
As the people responsible for the war are the leaders of Russia, anything we say is irrelevant as we are not party to the conflict.
We are a party. We are supplying weapons now that are going to kill Ukrainian civilians for years after the war ends. That’s what cluster bombs do.
I fully support Ukraine’s defense. That means exercising some judgement over what we contribute to. So many atrocities have been committed in our name. Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Israel, Nicaragua, Iran… We need to put some lid on how many innocent kids are worth the hypothetical gains we’re expecting to get.
When this ends – it will one day end – I hope Ukrainians get a satisfactory deal. However I must ask:
It’s been said – often in bad faith – that eastern Ukraine is Russian-sympathetic. That a major faction may actually prefer Russian rule. I find this disgusting, but if it turns out to be true, are we prepared to follow their wishes? Or do we disregard that because it conflicts with our preferences?
If Russia keeps the current territory, are you prepared to contend with all the deaths that occur between now and then? If the deaths and trauma DON’T yield gains, will you say, ‘My god… Andrew as right. I insisted that more blood would yield a worthwhile gain and it didn’t. That blood was split for nothing.’
I think war is fucking hell, and I don’t think people are applying any judgement to their anger.
Personally, I think you have a very bad faith argument in believing that your argument holds more weight than the entire government and military organization of the country of Ukraine. It’s their decision to make, not yours. They have to live with the consequences, not you or me.
And arguing that Russia may permanently acquire land in Ukraine that they have invaded a year ago is completely illegal under international law.
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