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- [Reporter] These are cluster munitions,
a type of weapon that the US plans to send to Ukraine.
The controversial bombs are prohibited
by multiple countries, but they are part
of an $800 million aid package the Biden administration says
will strengthen Ukraine's offensive against Russian forces.
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- Russia has already spread tens of millions
of these bomblets across Ukrainian territory.
- [Reporter] Here's a breakdown
of how the cluster munition works and why the United States
plans on sending them despite humanitarian concerns.
US cluster munitions,
also known as dual-purpose improved conventional munition,
are a type of weapon that spreads small bomblets
over a wide area.
- What DPICMs bring to a battlefield is anti-armor
and anti-personnel capability.
- [Reporter] A common type of cluster munition
is fired in artillery shells,
which is what the US is expected to give Ukraine.
They can also be in the form of rockets
or dropped from a plane.
The weapon opens midair to release tens
or hundreds of smaller explosive munitions or submunitions.
These submunitions can be loaded with charges
that can penetrate armor
or munitions that can strike multiple human targets
across an area as large as several football fields.
- Clearly, a capability that would be useful
in any type of offensive operations.
- [Reporter] In Ukraine, Russia has used these munitions
as far back as the first days of the invasion
according to Human Rights Watch.
The group said one attack struck residential areas
in Kharkiv, killing at least three civilians.
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Specifically, they say Russia has used 9M55K Smerch rockets.
Those are composed of submunition containers
that have a tail fin and a fuse
and sit at the front of the rocket.
The submunitions are designed
to attack both people and equipment.
Behind those is the propellant.
After the rocket is launched,
the container ejects the submunitions,
commonly by combining an explosive charge
and a spin mechanism.
When the fuse of each sub munition is triggered
on the ground or in the air, it explodes,
but some of them can also fail to detonate.
These are referred to as duds,
a common issue with cluster munitions.
Duds can cause long-term hazards as they may detonate
after conflicts end and harm civilians.
Human rights groups say the first significant use
of cluster weapons was by German
and Soviet forces in World War II.
The munitions released by German planes
were commonly called butterfly bombs
with an attack on the British port of Grimsby
killing almost as many people after the raid as during it.
- [Newsreel Announcer] This bomb may go off
as soon as it's even likely touched.
It may also go off by itself
up to half an hour after it's landed.
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- [Reporter] The US made extensive use of cluster munitions
during the Vietnam War,
also dropping them in neighboring Laos.
And since then, unexploded bombs dropped by American planes
have killed or maimed thousands of Laotians.
More recently during the war in Iraq,
the US showered more than 1 million bomblets
during a three-week period of major combat.
Since 2008, more than 110 countries
have signed an international convention on cluster munitions
that prohibits all use, transfer, production,
and stockpiling of cluster bombs.
Russia and Ukraine have not signed the agreement,
and the US is among several other NATO countries
that are also not signatories.
- The DPICM ammunition we are delivering to Ukraine
will consist only of those with a dud rate less than 2.35%.
Compare that to Russia,
which has been using cluster munitions across Ukraine
with dud rates of between 30 and 40%.
- [Reporter] Cluster munitions are already being used
by both sides in the war in Ukraine.
- The difference is that Russia is using cluster munition
to attack, to invade Ukraine.
Ukraine is using cluster munition
to protect itself against an aggressor.
- [Reporter] According to Human Rights Watch,
Ukraine inherited a stockpile of cluster munitions
after the breakup of the Soviet Union,
and the Biden administration decided
to provide US cluster munitions after written assurances
that the weapons wouldn't be used in civilian areas.
- Even allies who were signatories to the Oslo Convention,
while they cannot formally support something
that they've signed up to a convention against,
have indicated both privately and many of them publicly
over the course of today that they understand our decision.
- [Reporter] The Pentagon says the cluster munitions
could be effective when used
against Russian armored formations and trench lines,
and US officials have defended the decision
to supply the weapons as necessary to prevent Ukraine
from running low on artillery ammunition
at a critical stage in the conflict.
- By providing Ukraine with DPICM artillery ammunition,
we will ensure that the Ukrainian military
has sufficient artillery ammunition for many months to come.
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