On July 7, the administration of president Joe Biden announced their intention to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine. It is expected that these weapons will help Ukraine conduct a counteroffensive at the desired pace and drive out the occupiers firmly entrenched in Ukrainian lands.
Cluster munitions are recognised as inhumane and banned in 121 countries, as their fragments remain in the ground for years after the war, endangering the civilian population. However, Ukraine, the United States and Russia haven't ratified a convention banning the use of this type of weapon. By the way, apart from the United States, 8 more states of the Alliance have not signed this convention.
The White House says the shells will be transferred from the US Department of defence inventories "under a rarely used provision of the Foreign Assistance Act, which allows the president to provide aid, regardless of appropriations or arms export restrictions, as long as he determines that it is in the vital US national security interest," states Washington Post.
The US did not use this type of projectile since the war with Korea and did not produce them. However, there are still about 4.7 million "cluster shells, rockets, missiles and bombs, containing more than 500 million submunitions."
