Russia Battered ukraine With Cluster Bombs: U.S.

US officials have dismissed concerns around the risk of cluster bombs to civilians in Ukraine, arguing that Russia has laid extensive networks of landmines and explosives in Ukraine since the war began, Chris Panella reported for Business Insider.

Photo Insert: Russian cluster munitions used in Kharkiv.

On Friday, the US announced the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine, a move marred with controversy.

The artillery-laid bombs are banned in over 108 countries — including dozens of the US' NATO allies — that signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2008, preventing the use, transfer, or development of cluster bombs.

While Ukraine hit areas occupied by Russian troops around Izium with cluster bombs, Russia targeted population centers and even destroyed schools, hospitals and shelters with the same munitions.

US officials have defended the decision, noting these weapons boost Ukraine's effectiveness against hardened defenses and that they're not too worried about long-term consequences considering much of Ukraine is already covered in fields of Russian-laid landmines and bomblets that will require extensive cleanup when the war's over.

Cluster munitions, like the 155-millimeter artillery shells called dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs) that the US is giving Ukraine, they break apart and scatter as many as 72 bomblets over a large area.

Other US munitions use thousands of tungsten balls to obliterate armor and eviscerate the bodies of combatants.

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