Use of cluster munitions in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The use of cluster munitions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present) has been recorded by a number of eyewitnesses and journalists, as well as representatives of the UN, humanitarian and public organizations.[1][2] In particular, the head of the UN Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet, reported on March 30 at least 24 cases since the beginning of the invasion.[3] As of July 1, hundreds of attacks by Russian forces with cluster munitions have already been recorded in the settlements of the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions.[4][5][6] 215 civilians are known to have been killed in these shellings and 474 injured, many of which may go unreported.[6] Both Russia as well as Ukraine have used cluster munitions during the conflict, however, Russian use has been extensive while Ukrainian use has been more limited.[7]
Neither Russia nor Ukarine are signatories of the 2008 convention limiting the use of cluster munitions.[7] The use of such weapons against civilians violates the principles of humanitarian law and therefore constitutes a war crime.[8][4] Reports of Russian attacks have prompted the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation into the commission of war crimes in Ukrainian territory.[9][10]
Remains of clusters and other munitions collected by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region, May 10, 2022Shelling of the Central City Hospital in Vuhledar on February 24, 2022 (Donetsk region). According to the UN Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, the Russian attack killed at least 4 civilians and injured 10, damaged ambulances and destroyed a hospital building.[4] A Human Rights Watch investigation documented the use of cluster munitions as Iskander short-range ballistic missiles, as well as a ballistic missile of the Tochka system with a 9N123 cluster warhead for 50 submunitions.[16][21][14] Human rights activists called the use of shells with a wide radius of destruction in densely populated areas "blatant disregard for the lives of civilians".[22]
The shelling of the preschool "Sonechko" in the city of on February 25, 2022 (Sumy region). According to the UN Monitoring Mission and Amnesty International, a public human rights organization, an attack by six 220-mm Uragan rockets with cluster warheads on a building where civilians were hiding killed at least 2 adults and 1 child, 1 other child was injured.[14][4][23]
Okhtyrka
Shelling of residential areas in on February 25 and 28, 2022. The UN monitoring mission reported that at least 9 civilians were killed and 37 were injured during the first cluster munition rocket attack.[4] Four days after the start of the Russian invasion, Amnesty International documented three more attacks with cluster munitions in the northern part of Kharkiv.[9] At the same time, UN officials reported 9 dead and 37 injured civilians as a result of the attacks. In just 11 days of artillery shelling of Kharkiv by Russian troops, 450 civilians were killed or wounded, apartment buildings, schools and shops were destroyed.[24] A later investigation by Human Rights Watch confirmed that the Russian side fired 9M55K Smerch cluster munitions into three districts of Kharkiv. The direction of some of the unguided rocket elements stuck into the ground indicated that they were launched from the Russian border.[10][25] At least 11 missiles were tracked by CNN to the 79th Russian rocket artillery brigade based in the Belgorod region of Russia. She reported directly to the head of the Western Military District of the Russian armed forces, Colonel General Alexander Zhuravlev. Previously, he led the battles for Aleppo in Syria, where there were also reports of massive use of cluster munitions, although the Russian Ministry of Defense denied this.[26] In April 17, in Kharkiv, at least 3 sappers were killed and 4 sappers were seriously injured from explosions of cluster munitions, who were decontaminating ammunition found in the city.[27] On May 8, south of the city, in the Sinelnikovsky district of the Dnipropetrovsk region, a 12-year-old boy who stumbled upon it died from the explosion of a cluster submunition.[28][29] In total, at least 9 people suffered from such ammunition in the Dnipropetrovsk region.[6]
Kharkiv
on March 7, 11 and 13, 2022. Specialists from the Médecins Sans Frontières association found numerous small holes typical of cluster munition attacks on the territory of the oncological hospital of the city. A later Human Rights Watch investigation confirmed the use of cluster weapons in the shelling of residential buildings. Only during the attack on March 13, 9 civilians were killed in line at an ATM, numerous injuries were recorded among local residents, houses and civilian cars were destroyed. Remnants of Uragan and Smerch cluster munitions, unexploded 9N210 fragmentation submunitions were identified on the photo and video from the scene.[11][10][12] May 7, the mayor of Mykolaiv, Alexander Senkevich, told reporters that during the shelling of the city, the Russian army fired at least 40 cluster munitions, mainly at residential buildings. As the authorities prepared for such an attack, most of the population was evacuated, but at least 60 were reported to have been seriously injured.[30]
Shelling of Mykolaiv
Shelling of Mariupol in March–May 2022. Independent media and the Ukrainian side accused the Russian military of bombing civilian shelters with cluster munitions during shelling of the city and attacks on Azovstal. According to the mayor of Mariupol, at the end of April, during the two-month siege of the city by Russian troops, more than 20 thousand people died - twice as many than the 2 year occupation of the city during World War II.[32]Oksana Pokalchuk, director of Amnesty International Ukraine, said they were able to prove the use of cluster munitions by Russia after interviewing a victim who provided them with a fragment of ammunition that was removed from his thigh.[33]
[31]
and other cities of the Kyiv region. According to Oleg Tkalenko, deputy chief prosecutor of the Kyiv region, forensic experts found fragments of cluster munitions in bodies from mass graves in Bucha after the retreat of Russian troops. The exact number of civilians killed specifically due to the use of cluster munitions in the village was unknown, but at least 8 out of about 500. The Bellingcat war crimes team confirmed the use of RBK-500 cluster munitions with PTAB-submunitions in Bucha 1M and cluster missiles fired by the BM-30 Smerch. The mayor of the city, Anatoly Fedoruk, stated that "Bucha was turned into a Chechen safari, where land mines were used against civilians".[11] Many civilians were killed by cluster munitions in Borodyanka.[5] The damage from cluster munitions in the vicinity of Gostomel was so great that many animals died from them.[5]
Shelling in Bucha
Although the Russian side denies accusations of using cluster munitions in residential areas,[2][9] international and non-governmental organizations have reported such attacks. By the beginning of April, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies were reporting cluster munition shelling in Kharkiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Donetsk, Odesa, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.[1] By July 1, Cluster Munition Coalition reports shelling in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions.[6] Testimony from independent weapons experts confirmed that a number of cluster rounds were dropped on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.[11] This is proved by photos and videos of eyewitnesses of the events, as well as journalists on the ground. Much of this data was collected by Ukrainian prosecutors and passed on to the International Criminal Court. In early March, an investigation began into the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.[11][10] An August 2022 Cluster Munition Coalition report noted that Russia has used cluster munitions extensively during conflict, inflicting hundreds of civilian casualties and damaging civilian infrastructure.[7]
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission confirmed that during the first month of the war in 2022, the Russian military used cluster weapons in Ukrainian settlements at least 16 times.[4] At the end of March, the head of the UN Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet, reported at least 24 cases since the invasion began. The agency indicated that the attacks damaged medical facilities, including 50 hospitals.[3][11] As of August 2022, there have already been hundreds of cases of Russian use of cluster munitions in at least 10 out of 24 regions of Ukraine. It is known that 215 civilians were killed and 474 wounded during these attacks, and many cases may remain unknown. At least 7 people were killed and 3 were injured by submunitions that did not explode immediately. The shelling of cluster munitions mainly affected civilian infrastructure: residential buildings, hospitals, schools, playgrounds, in one case a cemetery.[6][20]
During the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army used at least 6 types of cluster munitions: missiles for multiple rocket launchers "Hurricane", "Smerch", "Tornado-S", missile systems "Tochka" and "Iskander-M", as well as RBC bombs -500 with PTAB-1M submunitions.[6] Smerch missiles were used for 72 submunitions, as well as other charges for 50 submunitions. According to the Russian manufacturer, missiles used in residential areas can contain up to 1.45 kg of explosive and scatter into about 316 fragments.[2][21] The most large-scale Russian attacks with weapons include:
In addition, it was reported about the use of cluster munitions in the residential sector of the city of Pokrovsk (Donetsk region, March 4),[36]Krasnogorovka (Donetsk region, March 27),[37]Slavyansk (Donetsk region, April 22),[38] and in the villages of Kiinka and Pavlovka (Chernihiv region, February 28).[39]
International law prohibits deliberate attacks on civilians or civilian infrastructure. The Russians denied the accusations, assuring that it strikes "only at military facilities and exclusively with high-precision weapons." Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the accusations against Russia are “a duck, this is a duck for sure”.[40][41] However, analysts at the international non-governmental organization Bellingcat considered it “highly unlikely” that the Ukrainian side would use explosive weapons in their own cities.[40][42]
Use by Ukraine
In early March 2022, The New York Times reported the first use of a cluster munition by Ukrainian troops during the invasion near the farm Husarivka. It landed close to the Russian army’s headquarters. According to the report, nobody died in that strike.[13] An August 2022 Cluster Munition Coalition report noted that Ukraine has used cluster munitions in a limited capacity.[7]
Russia accused Ukraine of using cluster munitions in strikes at Belgorod that killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more on December 30 2023.[43]
In March 2023, Reuters reported that Ukraine sought to procure CBU-100 cluster bombs from the U.S. stockpile in order to dismantle them, extracting the submunitions and use them as individual bomblets to be dropped from drones against enemy armour in a targeted manner. It also petitioned the U.S. for deliver of 155 mm artillery cluster shells to be used in the east of the country against mass infantry assaults such as had notably been employed by Russian forces during the Battle of Bakhmut.[44] In June 2023, Reuters reported that the U.S. military had assessed that cluster munitions would be useful in Ukraine's effort to push back Russian occupation forces.[45] U.S. president Joe Biden approved the provision of cluster munitions to Ukraine on 6 July, bypassing U.S. law prohibiting the transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate greater than one percent.[46] According to President Biden the decision was made as a result of the US running low on conventional 155mm ammunition to supply the Ukrainians whose ammunition stockpiles are also running low.[47]
In late 2023, Ukrainian troops reported that their cluster munitions were becoming increasingly ineffective against Russian forces. A Ukrainian platoon commander on the Bakhmut front told The New York Times that the Russians were adapting to Ukraine's usage of cluster munitions, assaulting in smaller infantry units and digging their trenches deeper.[48]
