MOSCOW: Ukrainian forces have hit the Russian border area of Zhuravlevka in the western Belgorod region with cluster bombs on Friday, the Belgorod governor claimed on Saturday.
Ukraine Used Cluster Bombs on Border Village: Russian Official
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, “In the Belgorod area, twenty-one artillery shells and 3 cluster munitions from a multiple rocket launcher were fired by the Ukrainian troops at the village of Zhuravlevka,”.
Earlier, the United States (US) said that it would provide thousands of cluster munitions to Kyiv. Russia criticized the United States’ decision to provide cluster bombs to Ukraine, describing it as an “act of desperation” that will have no impact on Moscow’s ongoing campaign in Ukraine.
Russian Minister for Defence Affairs Sergei Shoigu said that his country would be forced to use “similar” weapons if the US provided cluster bombs to Kyiv.
The US decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine has drawn strong criticism from humanitarian groups due to the inherent dangers they pose, including the potential for unexploded bomblets to endanger civilians for years to come. US President Joe Biden acknowledged the difficulty in providing weapons capable of dispersing numerous small explosives over a wide area, covering several football fields.
A pact banning the use of cluster bombs has been joined by over 120 nations that agreed not to produce, use, transfer or store the arms and to clear them after they have been used. The US, Ukraine, and Russia are among those countries that have not inked the pact. The majority of NATO nations have also signed on to the cluster munitions ban, some of those countries nearest to Russia like Latvia, Estonia, Romania, and Poland.
Several countries including Canada, Spain, and the United Kingdom opposed the use of Cluster Bombs and said that they should not be provided to Kyiv.
