US-provisioned cluster munitions deployed in Ukraine - normalising brutality.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: greendust
I cant wait until Russia returns the favor (this isnt new tech) and then the stooges of globalism will be crying war crime!

Russia is already using them. Sauce for the goose and all, and why are you all upset? Bombs blow up and kill people. Is there any such thing as a humanitarian bomb? Are you any less dead if you get in the way of an old-fashioned grenade or a cluster bomb? Are the 100,000 estimated civilian casualties from Hiroshima somehow worse than the 2 million civilian casualties in Germany caused by "conventional" weapons? The "stooges" are those who think one is worse than the other.

Well, I havent seen any proof of Russia using them and I am not so upset. How many times do I have to say I support neither side in this. The only side I support is any side that wants to keep my country out of this nonsense.

Also, your apples and oranges equivocation is annoying. Seems alot of us have constant war boners but aren't willing to consumate themselves. I say to anyone in "love" with the Ukraine, or even Russia to PLEASE hop on a plane and go there and fight. Put your money where your mouth is. Use your war boner for real - quit pecking at the keyboard and thrust it in your supposed enemy!

originally posted by: greendust

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: greendust
I cant wait until Russia returns the favor (this isnt new tech) and then the stooges of globalism will be crying war crime!

Well, I havent seen any proof of Russia using them and I am not so upset. How many times do I have to say I support neither side in this. The only side I support is any side that wants to keep my country out of this nonsense.

Anyone stating they haven't seen proof of Russia's use of cluster munitions just hasn't bothered to look for it.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian armed forces have used cluster munitions in attacks that have caused hundreds of civilian casualties and damaged civilian objects, including homes, hospitals, and schools. The Ukrainian military has not denied credible evidence of its own use of cluster munitions in the conflict and has publicly asked to be supplied with the weapon.

At least 10 types of cluster munitions and three types of individual submunitions have been used in Ukraine since February 24, 2022. They are all launched from the ground in missiles, rockets, and mortar projectiles except for the RBK-series cluster bomb, which is delivered by aircraft. With the exception of an Israeli-designed cluster munition, the cluster munitions used in Ukraine were manufactured in the Soviet Union prior to 1991 or in Russia, some as recently as 2021.

The following cluster munition attacks since May 2022 were predominately undertaken by Russian forces and demonstrate civilian harm from these weapons.[15]

Russian armed forces used cluster munition rockets in attacks on Kharkiv city and nearby areas in Kharkivska region in May 2022 according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch.[16] Two volunteers were wounded on May 12 when a cluster munition rocket pierced the roof of a cultural center in Derhachi, near Kharkiv city. Two civilians about a kilometer away were killed, at around the same time, by submunitions – possibly from the same rocket. On May 23, a cluster munition attack struck a maternity clinic in Kharkiv city, wounding a man at a bus stop outside the clinic.

Ukrainian armed forces reportedly used cluster munitions in attacks on Izium city, Kharkivska region, between March and September 2022, when it was controlled by Russian armed forces, according to the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine.[17] The commission provided three examples illustrating this use of cluster munitions in Izium: a May 9, 2022 an attack on a residential area that killed three people and injured six; a July 14, 2022 attack on the central market that injured two older women; and, a July 16, 2022 attack on a residential area that killed two older persons.
Uragan cluster munition rocket attacks by Russian forces on the city of Sloviansk on June 27, 2022 killed a man and wounded three other civilians, according to Agence France Presse.[18]

Russian armed forces used cluster munitions in an attack on city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipropetrovska region on July 9, 2022, killing two civilian women and wounding a civilian man, according to a statement by the Dnipropetrovska region Prosecutor's Office.[19]

A Russian attack using Uragan cluster munition rockets killed a 70-year-old man and wounded two civilian women in an apartment building in Chuhuiv city, Kharkivska region on August 3, 2022, according to local authorities.[20]

A cluster munition rocket attack by Russian forces reportedly killed two civilians and wounded 12 others near a public transportation stop in Mykolaiv on September 29, 2022, according to local authorities.[21]

Russian armed forces used cluster munitions rockets in at least three attacks on Kherson city in November 2022, according to Human Rights Watch.[22] One attack wounded three people as they were walking down a city street on November 21.
An Uragan cluster munition rocket attack by Russian forces on the town of Hirnyk, Donetska region on December 12 killed two civilians and wounded 10 more, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office.[23]

Russian forces fired Uragan cluster munition rockets near the central market in the town of Konstyantynivka in Donetska region on March 18, 2023, wounding at least six civilians, according to the region’s governor.[24] That same day, Russian forces used cluster munitions in an attack on the city of Kramatorsk, which killed at least two people and wounded eight.[25]

A Russian cluster munition attack on the village of Malokaterynivka in eastern Ukraine on May 10 wounded eight people including three emergency medical workers, according to the governor of Zaporizka region.[26]

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The Russian government has generally avoided commenting on its use of cluster munitions in Ukraine but has not denied using the weapons. Instead, it has sought to draw attention to past use of cluster munitions by, for example, NATO member states in Yugoslavia in 1999.[27]

After the April 8, 2022, Russian cluster munition attack on the Kramatorsk train station, the Russian Defense Ministry blamed Ukraine for the attack.[28] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated the unsubstantiated claim on April 20.[29]

Russia and its proxy forces previously used cluster munitions in eastern Ukraine in 2014 until a 2015 ceasefire, causing numerous civilian casualties.[30] Russia repeatedly drew attention to Ukraine’s use of cluster munitions at the time, but never acknowledged its role in using cluster munitions. Russia has never explicitly denied its direct involvement in supporting the Syrian government’s cluster munition attacks since 2015, which Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov told Human Rights Watch in 2016 were carried out in compliance with international humanitarian law.[31]

Russia is the most vocal state critic of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which it says it cannot join as it regards cluster munitions as “a legitimate type of weapon that is not banned by international humanitarian law and plays a significant role in the defense interests of Russia.”[32] Russia last participated as an observer in a meeting of the convention in 21012

Ukraine has not denied credible evidence of its own use of cluster munitions in the current conflict. The New York Times was the first to report Ukrainian cluster munition use. It found evidence that strongly suggested that Ukrainian forces used Uragan cluster munition rockets in Husarivka in Kharkivska region on March 6 or 7, 2022 when Russian forces occupied the village.

Cluster Munition Use in Russia-Ukraine War

Neither side has denied using cluster munitions, which is good evidence that both sides have used them. Russia has certainly talked up it defensive lines that make use of mine fields, which are a worse problem than cluster munitions.

Being anti-war is all fine and good, but what happens when the rubber meets the road, and one country invades another? Pacifism isn't a winning strategy in such circumstances.