Russia now using cluster munitions, a weapon of terror, against Ukraine

CNN aired footage today appearing to show cluster munitions going off in Kyiv. The CNN report said Russia seems to be using a cluster rocket fired by multiple rocket launchers they have moved into position around Kyiv and Kharkiv.

A cluster munition is a bomb dropped from airplanes or a warhead fired by cannons or rocket launchers that comes apart in the air and spreads dozens of small “bomblets” over a wide area. The footage on CNN showed what appeared to be cluster bombs going off in the distance in an area that was described as residential, not strategic — as in the site of Ukrainian forces or military posts or positions. Explosions could be seen going off sequentially over an extended area, as the bomblets exploded separately. Another piece of footage was shot from an apartment on a high floor and showed cluster bomblets hitting a parking area below the apartment. Small explosions could be seen going off rapidly one by one, hitting the ground and striking several cars in the parking lot. I could see at least one vehicle on fire that had been hit by one of the bomblets. The amount of damage was consistent with what would be caused by cluster munitions. The target, of course, was an apartment complex, not a military installation or troop concentration.

Cluster bombs were designed primarily as an anti-personnel weapon, intended to be used against soldiers on an open battlefield. Some of the cluster bombs are designed to attack non-armored vehicles like Humvee-type troop carriers and trucks because it doesn’t take a huge amount of explosive to damage or destroy non-armored vehicles. Other cluster munitions are capable of damaging or taking out heavily armored tanks because they contain “shape-charged” bomblets that can pierce heavy armor. Some cluster bombs are designed to separate in the air and drop small mines that penetrate the soil and don’t go off on impact, but do explode when they are stepped on by human beings or driven over by trucks or armored vehicles.

Cluster munitions were designed so that the number of jets or cannons or rocket launchers could be reduced while still enabling them to fire a weapon with the possibility of doing widespread damage. If you had to fire ordinary artillery shells at a target, you would have to fire a lot of them to achieve the same coverage of area and the same amount of damage as can be accomplished using cluster-bomb warheads. The same is true with cluster bombs dropped from jets and cluster rockets fired from ground-based rocket launchers.

Cluster bombs have been labeled a weapon of terror by international organizations like the Red Cross, the UN, Human Rights Watch, and Handicap International. This is because cluster munitions are utterly indiscriminate in what they hit. Where as an ordinary artillery shell or even a convention bomb can be carefully aimed at a specific target with a high degree of accuracy, a cluster munition hits such a wide area that it cannot be targeted with the same degree of accuracy. In addition, the cluster munitions can drop mine-bomblets that are completely indiscriminate in what they target and what or who they might kill or wound.

A treaty known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions was signed in 2010 by 108 nations. Thirty-eight countries have ratified the Convention. The United States, Russia, Brazil, and China are not signatories to the pact.

Having watched the footage on CNN, I can assure you that the explosions I saw in the parking lot of the apartment complex were cluster bomblets. They hit in rapid succession, and the explosions were not large and did not do the kind of damage a conventional mortar or artillery round would do. In the other footage shot from a greater distance, it was not clear whether the munitions going off were cluster bombs or small rockets fired from a multiple rocket launcher, which would have produced similar explosions, but it highly likely they were cluster munitions as the rocket launchers I’ve seen fire much larger rockets that would cause larger explosion than shown in the CNN footage. But it’s difficult to be making judgements like these simply from televised footage, most of which appears to come from cell phones owned by Ukrainian civilians.

Use of cluster munitions by Russia indicates that commanders realize the conventional shelling and rocketing and bombing they have done so far has not had the effect they desired, which was has been to cause panic and defeat of the Ukrainian army and citizenry. They are obviously hoping that cluster munitions, designed to cause large numbers of casualties, will drive more citizens out of Kyiv and Kharkiv, cause more casualties among Ukrainian ground troops, and make it easier for the Russian army to “take” the two cities.

Employing weapons of terror is an act of desperation. International organizations like the UN and Red Cross should immediately condemn Russia for using cluster munitions and call for them to cease.