U.S. includes cluster munitions in $800M Ukraine weapons package

The Defense Department announced an $800 million military aid package for Ukraine today that includes controversial cluster munitions.

The Pentagon said the “dual-purpose improved conventional munitions,” or DPICMs, are “effective and reliable,” though humanitarian groups say cluster munitions pose a long-term risk to civilians as they have often been demonstrated to have high “dud rates,” sometimes remaining unexploded and dangerous for months and years.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said at a Pentagon press conference that the cluster munitions being provided to Ukraine have a failure rate of less than 2.35%, far lower than those being used by Russia, which have dud rates between 30% and 40%.

“The Russians have been indiscriminate in their uses of all kinds of weapons, they’ve been indiscriminate in the uses of cluster munitions as well,” he said. “The worst thing for civilians in Ukraine is for Russia to win the war and it’s important that they don’t. This gives them an extra arrow in their quiver. They will deliver in a time frame that is relevant for the counteroffensive.”

Kahl said Ukraine, with financial support from the United States, has also committed to post-conflict de-mining operations.

“We’ve gotten these assurances in writing,” he said, noting that Ukraine, even without the U.S. DPICMs, will be faced with a “generational effort” to de-mine land located in areas of conflict.

“This is an issue the Ukrainians are going to have to grapple with regardless,” he said, noting that DOD has cluster munitions variants with higher dud rates that are not being transferred.

Kahl said some concerns reported in the media have focused on older cluster munitions that demonstrated higher dud rates based off testing completed in the 1980s. The DPICMs being transferred, he said, have showed much lower failure rates based off testing that ran between 1998 and 2020. Kahl said the studies will not be made public as they are classified but asserted that DOD has “high confidence” in the results.

Additionally, Kahl said the transfer of the munitions is within the authority of President Biden, despite international agreements that prohibit the transfer of cluster munitions with failure rates above 1%.

“These munitions are pretty close to 1%,” he said, adding that Biden has the legal authority to “waive” international cluster munitions agreements on “national security grounds.”

Though more than 100 countries, including the UK, France, and Germany, have outlawed cluster munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, neither the United States nor Ukraine are signatories to the ban.

Kahl said “hundreds of thousands” of U.S. cluster munitions are available to be sent to Ukraine, but declined to provide a specific number regarding how many will be transferred.

The new aid package, being provided via presidential “drawdown” authority includes:

• Additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems;

• AIM-7 missiles for air defense;

• Stinger anti-aircraft systems;

• Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);

• 31 155mm Howitzers;

• 155mm artillery rounds, including DPICM, and 105mm artillery rounds;

• 32 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles;

• 32 Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers;

• Mine clearing equipment;

• Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;

• Javelin and other anti-armor systems and rockets;

• Precision aerial munitions;

• Penguin Unmanned Aerial Systems;

• 27 tactical vehicles to recover equipment;

• 10 tactical vehicles to tow and haul equipment;

• Demolitions munitions and systems for obstacle clearing;

• Small arms and over 28 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades;

• Spare parts and other field equipment.

The Pentagon has provided $41.3 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.