US to provide Ukraine cluster munitions in new military aid package

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional information on July 7.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration has decided to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine and is expected to announce on Friday that the Pentagon will send thousands of them as part of a new military aid package worth up to $800 million for the war effort against Russia, according to people familiar with the decision.

The decision comes despite widespread concerns that the bombs can cause civilian casualties and sparked a call from the United Nations to both Russia and Ukraine to avoid using them. The Pentagon will provide munitions that have a reduced “dud rate,” meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can result in unintended civilian deaths.

U.S. officials said Thursday they expect the military aid to Ukraine will be announced on Friday. The weapons will come from Pentagon stocks and will also include Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles and an array of ammunition, such as rounds for howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS, officials said.

Long sought by Ukraine, cluster bombs are weapons that open in the air, releasing submunitions, or bomblets, that are dispersed over a large area and are intended to wreak destruction on multiple targets at once.

The officials and others familiar with the decision were not authorized to publicly discuss the move before the official announcement and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Ukrainian officials have asked for the weapons to aid their campaign to push through lines of Russian troops and make gains in the ongoing counteroffensive. Russian forces are already using cluster munitions on the battlefield and in populated civilian areas, U.S. officials have said.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some cluster munitions leave behind bomblets’ that have a high rate of failure to explode — up to 40% in some cases. U.S. officials said Thursday that the rate of unexploded ordnance for the munitions that will be going to Ukraine is less than 3% and therefore will mean fewer threats left behind to civilians.

At a Pentagon briefing Thursday, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said he had no announcement to make about cluster munitions. He said the Defense Department has “multiple variants” of the munitions and “the ones that we are considering providing would not include older variants with (unexploding) rates that are higher than 2.35%.”

Ryder would not say whether Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has reached out to NATO counterparts to address some of their concerns on the use of cluster munitions. Ryder said the U.S. is aware of reports that indicate some munitions have higher unexploding rates.

If the decision was made to provide the munitions to Ukraine, he said the U.S. “would be carefully selecting rounds with lower dud rates, for which we have recent testing data.”

Asked how the cluster munitions, if approved, would help Ukraine, Ryder said they can be loaded with charges that can penetrate armor and fragment so they can hit multiple personnel — “a capability that would be useful in any type of offensive operations.” Ryder said the Russians have been using cluster munitions that have a very high dud rate.

Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who has been advocating that Washington send more weapons, noted that Ukrainian forces have had to disable mines from much of the territory they are winning back from Russia. As part of that process, Ukrainians will also be able to catch any unexploded ordnance from cluster munitions.

“We will have to de-mine anyway, but it’s better to have this capability,” Ustinova said.

She credited Congress for pushing the Democratic president’s administration over several months to change its position on the munitions.

Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the move was long overdue.

“Now is the time for the U.S. and its allies to provide Ukraine with the systems it needs from cluster munitions to F-16s to ATACMS in order to aid their critical counteroffensive. Any further delay will cost the lives of countless Ukrainians and prolong this brutal war,” said McCaul, R-Texas.

The Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, would give Ukraine the ability to strike Russian targets from as far as about 180 miles (300 kilometers).

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the U.S. has been thinking about providing the cluster munitions “for a long time.”

“The Ukrainians have asked for it, other European countries have provided some of that, the Russians are using it,” Milley said during a speech at the National Press Club.

Cluster bombs can be fired by artillery that the U.S. has provided to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has a large stockpile of them.

The last large-scale American use of cluster bombs was during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But U.S. forces considered them a key weapon during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to Human Rights Watch. In the first three years of that conflict, it is estimated the U.S.-led coalition dropped more than 1,500 cluster bombs in Afghanistan.

Pentagon spokesman U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder listens to a question during a media briefing at the Pentagon, Thursday, July 6, 2023, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)

Proponents of banning cluster bombs say they kill indiscriminately and endanger civilians long after their use. Groups have raised alarms about Russia’s use of the munitions in Ukraine.

A convention banning the use of cluster bombs has been joined by more than 120 countries who agreed not to use, produce, transfer or stockpile the weapons and to clear them after they’ve been used.

The United States, Russia and Ukraine are among the countries that have not signed on.

Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said Friday that “the use of such munitions should stop immediately and not be used in any place.”

“We will urge the Russian Federation and Ukraine to join the more than 100 states that have ratified the convention of cluster munitions and that effectively ban their use,” she added.

It is unclear how America’s NATO allies would view the U.S. providing cluster bombs to Ukraine and whether the issue might prove divisive for their largely united support of Kyiv. More than two-thirds of the 30 countries in the alliance are signatories of the 2010 convention on cluster munitions.

Germany made clear on Friday that it won’t be providing any cluster ammunition to Ukraine, as it joined an international treaty prohibiting the weapons more than a decade ago, but it expressed understanding for the American position.

“We’re certain that our U.S. friends didn’t take the decision about supplying such ammunition lightly,” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin. “We need to remember once again that Russia has already used cluster ammunition at a large scale in its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.”

Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense focusing on Russia and Ukraine, recently testified to Congress that the Pentagon has assessed that such munitions would help Kyiv press through Russia’s dug-in positions.

____ AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee and Associated Press writers Geir Moulson, Tara Copp, Zeke Miller and Frank Jordans contributed to this report.

编者按：本文已于7月7日更新，添加了更多信息。

华盛顿（美联社）——据知情人士透露，乔·拜登总统的政府已决定向乌克兰提供集束弹药，预计将于周五宣布，五角大楼将向乌克兰提供数千枚集束弹药，作为一项价值高达 8 亿美元的新军事援助计划的一部分，用于对抗俄罗斯的战争。

尽管人们普遍担忧这些炸弹会造成平民伤亡，并因此联合国呼吁俄罗斯和乌克兰避免使用它们，但五角大楼仍决定提供低哑弹率的弹药，这意味着未爆炸弹的数量将大大减少，从而降低造成平民意外伤亡的风险。

美国官员周四表示，预计将于周五宣布对乌克兰的军事援助。官员们称，这些武器将来自五角大楼的库存，包括布雷德利和斯特瑞克装甲车以及一系列弹药，例如榴弹炮炮弹和高机动性火箭炮系统（HIMARS）的炮弹。

乌克兰长期以来一直寻求获得集束炸弹，这种武器会在空中打开，释放子弹药或小型炸弹，这些子弹药或小型炸弹会散布在大片区域，旨在同时摧毁多个目标。

官员和其他知情人士在正式宣布之前没有被授权公开讨论此事，他们以匿名方式接受了美联社的采访。

乌克兰官员请求提供这些武器，以帮助他们突破俄军防线，并在正在进行的反攻中取得进展。美国官员表示，俄军已经在战场和人口稠密的平民区使用集束弹药。

据红十字国际委员会称，一些集束弹药会遗留未爆炸的子炸弹，这些子炸弹的未爆炸率很高——在某些情况下高达40%。美国官员周四表示，即将运往乌克兰的弹药未爆炸率低于3%，因此对平民的威胁较小。

周四，在五角大楼的一次简报会上，准将帕特·莱德表示，他没有关于集束弹药的任何消息要宣布。他说，国防部拥有“多种型号”的集束弹药，“我们正在考虑提供的弹药不包括未爆率高于2.35%的旧型号”。

莱德拒绝透露国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀是否已与北约同行沟通，以解决他们对集束弹药使用的一些担忧。莱德表示，美国已注意到一些报告，指出某些弹药的未爆炸率较高。

他表示，如果决定向乌克兰提供弹药，美国“将仔细挑选哑弹率较低的弹药，我们有最近的测试数据”。

当被问及如果集束弹药获得批准将如何帮助乌克兰时，莱德表示，这种弹药可以装填能够穿透装甲并产生碎片的装药，从而可以击中多个目标——“这种能力在任何类型的进攻行动中都将非常有用”。莱德还指出，俄罗斯一直在使用哑弹率极高的集束弹药。

乌克兰议员奥列克桑德拉·乌斯季诺娃一直倡导华盛顿向乌克兰提供更多武器。她指出，乌克兰军队不得不从他们从俄罗斯手中夺回的大片领土上排除地雷。作为这一过程的一部分，乌克兰人也将能够拦截集束弹药中任何未爆炸的弹药。

“无论如何我们都必须进行排雷，但拥有这种能力总是更好的，”乌斯季诺娃说。

她认为，国会几个月来一直敦促民主党总统的政府改变其在军火问题上的立场。

众议院外交事务委员会主席迈克尔·麦考尔表示，这一举措早就应该实施了。

“现在是美国及其盟友向乌克兰提供其所需系统的时候了，从集束弹药到F-16战斗机再到ATACMS导弹系统，以帮助其进行关键的反攻。任何进一步的拖延都将导致无数乌克兰人丧生，并延长这场残酷的战争，”德克萨斯州共和党参议员麦考尔说道。

被称为 ATACMS 的陆军战术导弹系统将使乌克兰能够从大约 180 英里（300 公里）外打击俄罗斯目标。

美国参谋长联席会议主席、陆军上将马克·米利上周表示，美国“长期以来”一直在考虑提供集束弹药。

“乌克兰人提出了要求，其他欧洲国家也提供了一些，俄罗斯人正在使用它，”米利在国家新闻俱乐部的一次演讲中说道。

美国向乌克兰提供的火炮可以发射集束炸弹，五角大楼也储备了大量的集束炸弹。

据五角大楼称，美军上一次大规模使用集束炸弹是在2003年入侵伊拉克期间。但人权观察组织指出，美军在2001年入侵阿富汗期间曾将集束炸弹视为关键武器。据估计，在阿富汗战争的头三年里，以美国为首的联军在阿富汗投掷了超过1500枚集束炸弹。

2023年7月6日，星期四，在华盛顿五角大楼举行的新闻发布会上，美国空军准将帕特里克·莱德（Patrick Ryder）正在听取媒体提问。（Alex Brandon/AP）

支持禁用集束炸弹的人士认为，这类炸弹会造成无差别杀戮，并在使用后很长一段时间内继续危及平民安全。一些组织已对俄罗斯在乌克兰使用集束炸弹的行为发出警告。

一项禁止使用集束炸弹的公约已获得 120 多个国家的加入，这些国家同意不使用、生产、转让或储存集束炸弹，并在使用后清除这些武器。

美国、俄罗斯和乌克兰等国尚未签署该协议。

联合国人权事务高级专员办事处发言人玛尔塔·乌尔塔多周五表示，“应立即停止使用此类弹药，并且不得在任何地方使用。”

她补充说：“我们将敦促俄罗斯联邦和乌克兰加入100多个已批准集束弹药公约并有效禁止使用集束弹药的国家行列。”

目前尚不清楚美国的北约盟国将如何看待美国向乌克兰提供集束炸弹，也不清楚这一问题是否会在它们对基辅的总体支持中引发分歧。北约30个成员国中，超过三分之二是2010年《集束弹药公约》的缔约国。

德国周五明确表示，不会向乌克兰提供任何集束弹药，因为德国十多年前就加入了禁止这种武器的国际条约，但德国对美国的立场表示理解。

德国政府发言人斯特芬·赫贝斯特赖特在柏林对记者表示：“我们确信，我们的美国朋友在决定提供此类弹药时绝非轻率之举。我们必须再次牢记，俄罗斯已经在对乌克兰发动的非法侵略战争中大规模使用了集束弹药。”

负责俄罗斯和乌克兰事务的国防部副助理部长劳拉·库珀最近向国会作证说，五角大楼评估认为，此类弹药将帮助基辅突破俄罗斯的防御阵地。

美联社外交记者马修·李以及美联社记者盖尔·穆尔森、塔拉·科普、泽克·米勒和弗兰克·乔丹对本报道亦有贡献。