What Are Cluster Munitions? U.S. Pushed to Give Ukraine Devastating Weapon

Ukraine has requested the United States provide its defenses with cluster munitions, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers from Congress has urged President Joe Biden to honor the appeal.

Some hesitancy on the part of the White House to honor the request may be due to the controversial nature of the weapons.

Cluster munitions carry a high potential for killing or wounding civilians, which has caused groups like Human Rights Watch to condemn their use. Due to the potential for civilian harm, cluster munitions are banned by more than 123 countries that ratified a 2008 treaty prohibiting the production, use and stockpiling of the weapons.

But the U.S., Ukraine and Russia are not among those who have signed that treaty.

Guy McCardle, the managing editor of Special Operations Forces Report (SOFREP), told Newsweek that cluster munitions are comprised of a "main bomb" that is dropped, which then releases several smaller bombs, known as "bomblets."

These bomblets "explode on impact and can kill everything in an area of several football fields," McCardle said. "I remember watching a display of these as a new cadet [in the U.S. Army], and my jaw literally dropped at the devastation. I had never seen anything like that. There is no way anything could survive that firestorm of shrapnel."

Despite cluster munitions' potential for widespread carnage, some members of Congress from the Helsinki Commission believe cluster munitions—specifically dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs)—should be given to Ukraine. A DPICM is an artillery or surface-to-surface cluster warhead.

Republican Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina, Democratic Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Republican Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana voiced their support of Kyiv receiving clusters in a letter sent to Biden on Friday, Foreign Policy reported.

"Transferring DPICMs to Ukraine presents an opportunity to provide the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a powerful capability to use against the Russian army and mercenary forces," the lawmakers wrote, according to Foreign Policy. "Let us use this untapped, vast arsenal in service of Ukrainian victory, and reclaiming Europe's peace."

Though Biden has never publicly discussed supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions, CNN in December cited anonymous sources within his administration as saying the request had not been rejected and could be considered more seriously at a later date.

Last month, Human Rights Watch reported that Russia has used cluster munitions in Ukraine multiple times over the course of the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022. The non-governmental organization said Russia's use of the minions in attacks has "caused hundreds of civilian casualties and damaged civilian objects, including homes, hospitals, and schools."

McCardle said that's why many nations prefer to stay away from cluster munitions.

"That's the problem with them; they kill everything indiscriminately over a wide area...Men, women, children, dogs, cats, birds...Everything dead," McCardle said. "It's the stuff of nightmares."