US President Joe Biden has defended his decision to send the controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine saying it was a “difficult decision” but Kyiv “needed them”. On Friday, Biden approved the deployment of US cluster bombs to Ukraine, with the weapons being drawn down from Defence Department inventories on Friday. “It was a very difficult decision on my part. And by the way, I discussed this with our allies, I discussed this with our friends up on the Hill,” Biden said in an interview with CNN.
“The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition,” he added.
Biden said that the cluster munitions were being sent as a “transition period” until the US is able to produce more 155mm artillery.
“This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” Biden said. “And so, what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to – not permanently – but to allow for this transition period, while we get more 155 weapons, these shells, for the Ukrainians.”
Over a 100 countries have outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions including UK, France, and Germany but US and Ukraine are not signatories to the ban.
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“They’re trying to get through those trenches and stop those tanks from rolling. But it was not an easy decision,” Biden said. “We’re not signatories to that agreement, but it took me a while to be convinced to do it.”
He added, “But the main thing is they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now – keep them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas – or they don’t. And I think they needed them.”
The decision to send the cluster munitions came after months of internal government discussion over whether to deliver the contentious weapons, which are prohibited in the majority of countries throughout the world.
Cluster weapons detonate in the air over a target, scattering dozens to hundreds of tiny submunitions across a large region, according to a Washington Post report.