Ukraine has already received the controversial cluster bombs promised by the US | International

Ukraine has already received the cluster bombs whose shipment was approved last week by the president of the United States, Joe Biden, as confirmed by a high command of the Kiev army to the US network CNN. It is a controversial weapon and prohibited by more than a hundred countries adhered to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions because it kills indiscriminately, although Moscow resorts to these bombs frequently, as has been verified in different areas of the front. battle. The President of Ukraine himself, Volodimir Zelenski, said at the NATO summit held this week in Vilnius (Lithuania) that it is fair that Ukraine has them to deal with the Russian invasion and assured that they will not use cluster bombs to attack the neighboring country. Spain, together with the United Kingdom and Canada, allies that frequently send weapons to Kiev, have expressed in this case their clear disagreement with the delivery of these projectiles, also criticized by other allies such as Germany or France.

"We have just received them," General Oleksandr Tarnavskii confirmed this Thursday in an interview with the aforementioned US chain. "We have not used them yet, but they can radically change" the situation on the battlefront, he stressed. "The enemy also understands that by obtaining these munitions, we will have an advantage" and "will give up that part of the terrain where it is possible for them to be used," he predicted. The highest officials in the army will be the ones who decide how and where they will be used, added Tarnavskii, stressing that "it is a very powerful weapon."

The controversy surrounds this type of weapon, widely used by Russia in the conflict and in civilian areas, according to international institutions and NGOs. In this sense, Tarnavskii insisted that they do not plan to launch them on densely populated areas, even if they are occupied by Kremlin troops. kyiv, according to information from The New York Times published in the first months of the war, it has also already used cluster bombs, although the Zelensky government has insisted that it complies "strictly with the norms of international humanitarian law," according to a Human Rights Watch report.

The United States, according to CNN, has indicated that it has demanded in writing that Ukraine not use the ammunition in areas with civilians.

"Russia constantly uses cluster munitions on our territory and is killing our people," Zelenski denounced in Vilnius on Wednesday, following the Biden Administration's controversial decision. The Ukrainian president added that the cluster bombs will be used "exclusively" for military objectives in the "temporarily occupied" areas of Ukraine.

Most of the allies of the United States are signatories to the 2008 Convention that prohibits the use of this type of weapon – not so neither Russia nor Ukraine. They are dangerous to the civilian population, especially children, even years after being dropped, as they spread small bombs over a wide area and are designed to wreak destruction on multiple targets at once.

Faced with the controversy over the delivery of cluster bombs to Ukraine, President Biden stated on the eve of the NATO summit in Lithuania that it had been "a very difficult decision." "And by the way, I talked about it with our allies, I talked about it with our friends on Capitol Hill," the president added in a conversation with CNN. "The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition," he justified.

Cluster weapons are part of a new military aid package to Ukraine (number 42) that is valued at 800 million dollars (about 730 million euros) and that includes "hundreds of thousands" of cluster bombs along with another artillery ammunition and armored vehicles.

Ukraine has been launching a counteroffensive against positions of the invading troops in the Donetsk (east) and Zaporizhia (south) regions for more than a month. The cluster bombs, according to Kiev, will serve to advance without risking so much the lives of their men in the midst of the dense defenses woven by the Russians in recent months, which include extensive minefields.

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