Full article: https://imgur.com/a/JVKx6Rn

Selected excerpt:

The cluster munitions the Biden administration is sending to Ukraine are much older, and pose an even greater threat to civilians. The bomb is called the dual-purpose improved conventional munition, or DPICM, and production of it ended in the 1990s. The longer the munition stays in storage, the higher the “dud rate” — the share of bomblets that remain unexploded after a cluster bomb is fired. Biden’s decision to send the munitions — a choice he described as “difficult” — bypassed a U.S. law prohibiting the transfer of cluster munitions with a dud rate of more than 1 percent.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    KHARKIV REGION, Ukraine — A few feet away from a pile of U.S.-made cluster bombs, an earsplitting boom goes off 50 times a day, marking the latest volley from a Ukrainian artillery crew seeking to hold back advancing Russian forces.

    Human Rights Watch called Biden’s decision “profoundly troubling.” Germany, France, Canada, the Netherlands and several other NATO allies publicly opposed the move, citing the potential for civilian casualties.

    “Cleaning up unexploded ordnance is going to require a huge effort — not because of U.S. cluster munitions but because of the incredible amount of mines planted by the enemy,” Andriy Besedin, the head of the Kupyansk city military administration, said in an interview.

    “Regardless of whether Ukraine fires these munitions, these areas will require significant remediation post-conflict, and we will provide assistance to support future Ukrainian demining efforts,” said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter.

    The controversy spurred the Obama administration to place a hold on transfers of the munitions to the kingdom, a decision that cut into the industry’s profits and resulted in the last U.S. manufacturer of cluster bombs, Textron Systems, to halt production in August of that year, citing “regulatory challenges.”

    Since his comments, there have been several reports of Russian cluster bomb attacks across Ukraine, including an assault on a Ukrainian training ground near Druzhkivka that killed one soldier and injured a team of journalists from the German news outlet Deutsche Welle.

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