Why Ukraine Wants to Use Cluster Munitions Despite Civilian Risk

Ukraine has requested cluster munitions to help it repel Russia’s invasion, but one advocacy group has already spoken out against them, urging President Biden to refuse to send the weapons.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation, a lobbying group affiliated with the Quakers, published the anti-cluster munition editorial at DefenseOne. The editorial states that supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine would harm its civilians, and damage Washington’s ability to “forge coalitions and promote other arms control agreements.” The article also describes Russian cluster-bomb attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets.

Cluster munitions replace a single warhead with many small bomblets that each have individual warheads. As part of a movement to eliminate the threat of unexploded bomblets to civilians, more than 100 countries have banned them. However, sending cluster munitions to Ukraine could be a lesser evil when compared to the threat of Russian subjugation.

Cluster munitions were developed toward the end of World War II, and became popular during the Cold War. A typical bomb or artillery shell is a single munition with a metal (typically steel) casing and an explosive filler. When it explodes, the casing turns into deadly shrapnel, hurtling it in all directions, but the danger is focused on a single location and dissipates the farther away the enemy is. These weapons are now known as unitary weapons to distinguish them from cluster munitions.

Cluster munitions are bombs or shells that are filled with smaller, often baseball-sized, bomblets. As the munition sails through the air toward its target, small explosive charges break it open, ejecting the bomblets in all directions. This results in many smaller explosions over a wider area.

The tactical benefits of cluster munitions are obvious. A single aircraft-delivered unitary bomb, for example, might only knock out a single tank in an enemy armored column; a cluster bomb, however, could damage many tanks over a wider area. The same goes for devastating infantry on foot, or attacking headquarters targets, fuel dumps, ammunition depots, and air-defense targets.

In the 1990s, attention was first drawn to the high dud rate of cluster bomblets. A rocket fired from a M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System—the larger, heavier, older version of the HIMARS rocket system—was packed with 644 M77 grenades, or cluster bomblets. The problem was that the dud rate for M77 grenades was approximately 4 percent, meaning that every rocket launched might leave up to 26 unexploded grenades on the ground.

Duds have always been an aspect of explosive weapons. A dud unitary rocket or bomb is large and sticks out, allowing civilians to avoid it until experts can remove the danger. Dud bomblets, however, are small and can quickly become difficult to spot on the ground. Curious civilians could pick up the unstable, oddly shaped munitions; they could also explode when a car or a person walks above them, or when they come into contact with a tractor or a farmer’s plow.

Persistent civilian casualties—caused weeks, months, or even years after a conflict has moved on—resulted in calls to ban cluster munitions. The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which 123 countries have signed, forbids the “use, stockpiling, production and transfer” of the weapons. Most European countries, as well as Australia and Japan, are signatories. The United States, Russia, and Ukraine are not, though the U.S. does place restrictions on their use.

In March, Reuters revealed that Ukraine was lobbying the U.S. to send it Mk-20 aircraft-delivered cluster bombs, a Vietnam War-era weapon. Each Rockeye weighs hundreds of pounds, and the bombs are not compatible with Ukrainian aircraft. Instead, Ukraine wants Rockeyes to disassemble them, using the individual bomblets as weapons for drones. Ukraine also wants DPICM 155-millimeter artillery rounds, which hold 88 cluster bomblets, but wants to use them as actual cluster munitions to devastate Russian armor.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 to fully absorb it into Moscow’s orbit, and eliminate the country as a separate political entity. Its troops have also engaged in a constant stream of war crimes, just a small number of which were included in the Friends editorial. It should also be noted that Russia has consistently (and without restriction) used cluster munitions on the Ukrainian military and civilians alike—including aircraft bombs and Uragan (“Hurricane”) rocket artillery.

Peacetime ethical restrictions aside, does Ukraine have a right to the most effective weapons, even those that can harm civilians when the country faces all-out invasion by a country with a documented history of war crimes? While cluster bomblets used in defense of their country may pose a slight threat to Ukrainian civilians, the Russian Army is obviously a far greater threat to their safety. As the defender in the conflict, Ukraine is also positioned to use them more responsibly, marking locations where cluster munitions were used, and removing duds once the war is over … if there is a Ukraine left in the end.

In certain situations, there is nothing that beats cluster munitions for impact on the battlefield. The Friends editorial does not suggest supplying Ukraine with an alternative weapon that is just as good, likely because there is no alternative. Even defensive war involves one moral compromise after another. It might be worth asking if the danger of cluster weapons is greater than the danger the Russian military poses. If it isn’t, maybe the Ukrainians are entitled to them after all.

Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News, and others. He lives in San Francisco.