US to Send Controversial Weapon to Ukraine

The US has just made perhaps its most controversial decision to date in regard to the Russia-Ukraine war: It will send Ukraine controversial munitions commonly known as cluster bombs, report the Washington Post and the AP. Many nations, including some of America's closest allies, ban the bombs because of the serious risk they pose to civilians. The bombs are intended to explode in the air and rain down "bomblets" on their targets, but they generally have a high "dud" rate—meaning they fail to explode in the air, embed themselves in the ground, then become deadly hazards for civilians (particularly children) who later come across them, per the New York Times.

In a sign of just how controversial they are, the Times notes that soon after the war began, then-White House press chief Jen Psaki suggested Russia was guilty of a "war crime" over reports it was using unconventional weapons including cluster bombs. While more than 120 nations have banned the bombs, the US, Russia, and Ukraine are not among them. The US views the move as necessary to boost Ukraine's slow-moving counteroffensive, with Ukraine running short of conventional artillery and arguing that cluster bombs are the best way to clear out entrenched Russian troops in their way. The US will supply cluster bombs with a dud rate of below 3%, according to the Post and the AP. (More Pentagon stories.)