Facts: Cluster munitions
A cluster weapon, or cluster bomb, is a weapon that is dropped from the air or launched from the ground or sea. When it explodes, it releases smaller warheads over large areas. Anyone within that area is at risk of being killed or injured, whether military or civilian.
Many of the warheads explode in the air or when they land on the ground, causing massive damage instantly. Others can lie dormant for years before being triggered, causing extensive damage similar to that caused by landmines.
Cluster munitions were first used during World War II.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) prohibits the use, transfer, production and encouragement to other states to use such weapons.
Over 100 states, including Sweden, have joined an international agreement against the use, transfer, production and stockpiling of cluster bombs.
In 2022, at least 916 people were killed and injured in Ukraine by cluster weapons, according to recent statistics. Almost all of the known victims, 855 people, are civilians.
Of those affected, 294 people lost their lives, reports CMC, which is a network of organizations working against the use of cluster munitions.
The figures from Ukraine make up a large majority of the global figure of 1,172 dead and injured during the year.
Russia’s extensive use of cluster bombs during the war in Ukraine, and also the less widespread use of the weapon by Ukrainian forces, has led to the global figures being the highest since the organization began keeping statistics in 2010.
Belkis Wille, expert at the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW). Indiscriminate weapons
Many countries have previously introduced bans on the weapons, as they are considered to affect civilians to a great extent. Over 100 countries, including Sweden, have joined a convention to prohibit the use, transfer, production and storage. However, regardless of whether a country has signed the convention or not, the use of cluster munitions is, according to many organizations, contrary to international humanitarian law, because the weapons are by their nature indiscriminate.
— We are in contact with the Ukrainians about our findings, which show that the way the Ukrainians have used these cluster bombs, they have killed their own civilians, says Belkis Wille of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) during a visit to Stockholm.
Ukraine has – after several organizations reported on the country’s use of cluster weapons – promised to investigate the data, but whether any investigation has been launched is unknown.
Fears erosion
Cluster munitions open up in the air and scatter smaller warheads over a larger area, which can have catastrophic consequences in densely populated areas. But the use of cluster munitions does not only lead to immediate casualties. It also has consequences later, when areas have been retaken and civilians have returned. Undetonated warheads from cluster munitions then act as land mines in the long term.
The US delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine could lead to an erosion of the ban on cluster munitions, believes Belkis Wille.
— Now some countries that are part of the convention have started to consider leaving it. I find that very worrying, she says.
Investigate war crimes
When the decision was made in the US to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, the Russians came out and condemned the use of the weapons by the Ukrainians, something Belkis Wille calls “ridiculous”.
— But it gives the Russians the opportunity to claim – in front of people in areas they have occupied in Ukraine – that the Ukrainian government does not care about the civilians and tries to kill them with indiscriminate weapons, which of course is hypocrisy. But it is something we see the Russians using in their rhetoric now.
HRW believes that the use of cluster munitions in the Ukraine war should be investigated as a war crime.
— When the Ukrainian military, like the Russian military, chooses to use indiscriminate weapons in an area where they know civilians live, then these attacks must be investigated as war crimes, says Belkis Wille.
The image shows how cluster munitions work. The ammunition type can be used by artillery and aircraft as well as in robots.