By Breitbart. The United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Spain have called upon U.S. President Joe Biden to not send cluster bombs to Ukraine amid concerns over the danger they pose to civilian populations.
As Ukraine marked over 500 days since the invasion by Russian forces, significant challenges have been levied against the war strategy of the Biden administration from its NATO allies in Europe, with both the British and Spanish governments urging Washington to back down from its pledge to send cluster bombs into the conflict.
Both the UK and Spain are signatories of the International Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits the use, manufacturing, stockpiling or transfer of the weapon type, however, key holdouts of the treaty are the United States, Ukraine and Russia. Cluster munitions, which are banned by over 100 countries, are a type of rocket, bomb, missile and other projectiles that explode mid-air to rain down on a large area. They have a high risk of failure, which could lead to them landing on ground, only to explode at a later time.
President Joe Biden, 80, justified his “very difficult” decision to send the deadly weapons to Ukraine as the country is “running out of ammunition” and the United States is running low on the 155-millimeter artillery shells to resupply the Ukrainian forces. Therefore, Biden said, the U.S. would provide cluster munitions for a “transition period”, while claiming that they will not be used in civilian areas but merely to break through the entrenched positions of the Russian forces. (Read more from “Cracking Coalition? UK and Spain Call on Biden to Not Send Cluster Bombs to Ukraine” HERE)
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Biden Defends Decision to Give Ukraine Cluster Bombs Amid Congressional Pushback
By NBC News. President Joe Biden defended what he called his “very difficult decision” to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine in an interview that aired Sunday, saying the war-torn country “needed” the controversial weapons to fight off invading Russian troops.
“It took me a while to be convinced to do it. But the main thing is, they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now from their — keep them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas — or they don’t. And I think they needed them,” Biden said in an interview on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
The administration’s announcement Friday that it would be sending cluster munitions to Ukraine in a U.S. military aid package was met with pushback from some of Biden’s fellow Democrats, who noted the surface-to-surface warheads, which disperse small munitions or bombs over wide areas, can explode after battle and sometimes injure or kill innocent people.
The weapons have been banned in more than 100 countries, and the White House suggested last year that Russia’s use of the weapons in Ukraine was a potential war crime.
Biden said the move was necessary now because the Ukrainian military is low on ammunition, emphasizing that it’s a temporary measure. (Read more from “Biden Defends Decision to Give Ukraine Cluster Bombs Amid Congressional Pushback” HERE)
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