Russia warns US over cluster bombs
Cambodia, Laos oppose possible supply to Ukraine of weapons still ravaging their countries
MOSCOW/VILNIUS, Lithuania — Russia has warned it would be forced to use “similar” weapons if the United States supplied cluster bombs to Ukraine, as the West pledged long-term security commitments for Ukraine on July 12.
It came before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was scheduled to hold symbolic talks with NATO’s 31 leaders at their summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. The Kremlin said on July 11 it would closely follow any decisions taken at the two-day summit and respond with unspecified measures to protect its own security.
The US announced on July 7 the decision to transfer to Ukraine cluster munitions — explosive weapons that release large numbers of smaller bomblets over a wide area, which are banned by an international convention ratified by 123 countries.
US President Joe Biden had previously mooted a model for Ukraine similar to one under which Washington has committed to giving Israel $3.8 billion in military aid per year over a decade.
Commenting on the NATO summit, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, warned on July 11 that the increase in military assistance to Ukraine by NATO brings World War III closer.
He also mentioned there were reports of Ukraine already using the “inhuman weapon” of cluster bombs.
Ironically, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Feb 28 last year that if the reports of illegal cluster bombs used by Russians were true, it would potentially be a war crime.
In Phnom Penh on July 10, Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen urged NATO member states and US allies to oppose the US plan to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.
“As the head of the royal government of Cambodia, I would like to continue to call on NATO member states and some US allies such as the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, and Canada, all of which are signatories to the Convention on the Prohibition of Cluster Munitions, to take responsibility and participate in preventing US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President from using this deadly weapon,” he tweeted.
Hun Sen said earlier that it will be “the worst danger” for Ukrainians for decades or even centuries if those cluster bombs are used, adding that Cambodia is still undergoing pain from US cluster munitions dropped in the Southeast Asian country more than half a century ago.
According to Yale University, between 1965 and 1973, the US dropped some 230,516 bombs on 113,716 sites in Cambodia.
The Laotian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also voiced opposition to the US move. “The Lao people were victimized by this deadly cluster munition more than five decades ago and even today they continue to be affected by the unexploded ordnance as it continues to pose serious threats to the lives and livelihood of our people,” said a ministry statement.
Between 1964 and 1973, the US flew 580,000 bombing runs over Laos, and US aircraft dumped 2,093,100 tons of ordnance on the landlocked nation, said an article published by National Public Radio (NPR) on July 12, citing US Defense Department figures.
An estimated 80 million — over 30 percent of those dropped — failed to detonate, it said.
Less than 1 percent of the dormant bombs have been cleared since the war ended in Laos, and about 20,000 civilians have been killed during the same period. Even as the numbers gradually decline, thousands continue to be killed, crippled, and disfigured, with half the victims being children, it added.
The decision by the US to send cluster munitions to Ukraine is “irresponsible and dangerous” and will certainly escalate the Ukraine crisis, Mladen Plese, a leading Croatian political analyst, told Xinhua.