“Ukraine, cluster bombs, both Kiev and Moscow have used them in these months of war,” writes Human Rights Watch

ROME – Ukrainian forces have already used cluster munitions, just as the Russians have used them, he says Human Rights Watch (hrw). New research by the Organization sheds light on cluster munition attacks by Ukrainian forces against Russian-controlled areas, particularly on Izium in the east of the country, during 2022.

The record. The US government is ready to send the cluster munitions requested by Kiev, but the transfer of these weapons would inevitably cause long-term suffering for civilians and undermine the international effort to permanently ban them, he stresses Human Rights Watch. HRW visited Izium and surrounding villages from 19 September to 9 October 2022, to investigate Russian abuses against Ukrainian civilians and interviewed more than 100 people, including abuse victims, witnesses, emergency services personnel and health workers. Nearly all said they saw fragments of munitions exploded around their homes during the occupation.

Missile attacks. Ukrainian rocket attacks with cluster munitions on the city of Izium in 2022 killed at least eight people and injured 15 others, according to information gathered by HRW. A United Nations report confirms that the Ukrainian armed forces have already used cluster weapons in Izium between March and September 2022.

The toll of cluster attacks. The total number of civilians killed and wounded in the cluster munition offensives examined by HRW is very likely higher than assumed, not least because the Russians have transferred many of the wounded to Moscow for medical treatment. An ambulance driver said he regularly transported civilians, including children, with cluster munition wounds during the occupation. A man from the village of Hlynske told researchers that in May 2022 a rocket with cluster munitions fell not far from his home. “Suddenly I heard my father screaming that he had been hit and could no longer move,” he said. “I ran and saw him on his knees, he could no longer move, he had been hit by pieces of metal sticking out of his spine and chest. He had small metal bullets lodged in his hands and legs as well.” The man received medical attention but died a month later after surgery.

Cluster munitions. They unfold in mid-air and scatter hundreds of smaller sub-munitions, also called bombs, over a relatively large area. Many of them fail to explode on impact with the ground and leave debris that are real mines that threaten people’s lives for years and years. This type of weapon is prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, to which 123 countries have signed up, but not Russia, Ukraine or the United States. Regardless, the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas violates international humanitarian law and is a war crime because it indiscriminately affects civilians.

The Human Rights Watch investigation. The Organization examined photos taken by residents of 13 aircraft carrier portions and engines of the Uragan cluster munition rockets that had struck Izium during the Russian occupation. Each Uragan rocket can hit a territory of 10 to 35 kilometers and fires around 30 sub-munitions. The investigations made by HRW confirm the use of this type of ammunition right in the territory of Izium, in positions not far from the Russian targets. A demonstration of what were the reasons for the offensive but also of the fact that these weapons produce precisely indiscriminate attacks. On June 6, the organization wrote to the Ukrainian Defense Minister to ask for an explanation, but on June 22 the ministry replied that it had not used cluster munitions either in or around Izium in 2022, when the city was controlled by the Russians.

Weapons made in the USA. The cluster bombs that the United States wants to send to Ukraine, which has explicitly requested them, are over 20 years old and have a high failure rate, meaning they could remain lethal for years. Their use in American combat operations in 1991 and 2003 in Iraq resulted in casualties among both civilians and U.S. military personnel. For the transfer, Ukraine would have to agree to use them only against clearly defined military targets and never in civilian inhabited areas.

Russian attacks. Human Rights Watch writes that the Russians have conducted hundreds of cluster bomb attacks in at least 10 of the 24 regions of Ukraine from February 2022 to the present. The NGO has documented hundreds of civilian casualties in the regions of Chernihivska, Donetska, Kharkivska, Khersonska and Mykolaivska. A report detailed the April 8, 2022 attack by a Russian Tochka-U ballistic missile, carrying a cluster munition warhead, on a busy train station in Kramatorsk. The toll was 58 dead and over 100 wounded.

Ukrainian attacks. Kiev used cluster rockets in eastern Ukraine as early as 2014 and 2015. The New York Times reports that Ukrainian forces used Uragan cluster bombs in an attack on Russia-controlled Husarivka territory in Kharkivska region in March 2022. In September and October 2022, Human Rights Watch visited 26 houses and apartment buildings in and around the city of Izium that had been hit by cluster munition attacks when the areas were under Russian occupation. The researchers found remains of sub-munitions, as well as documenting damage to windows, walls, gates and houses.

Tales in Izium. At least one Ukrainian civilian was killed and another wounded in a cluster munition attack on the left bank of the Siverskiy Donets River in Izium on an evening in March 2022. Residents said Russian forces had already taken control of that part of the city. Two people said they heard a series of explosions in the early afternoon. One of them, Nikolaii, explained that his wife went to check on the neighbors that day because she had seen them cooking in the yard. And he found a dead woman on the ground, covered in blood.

In the village of Hlynske, four kilometers north of Izium, a villager named Orest said his house had been repeatedly damaged by munitions explosions since April. He said that one April morning, at least 12 bombs hit his home when Russian forces arrived to interrogate him and search his home. The cluster munition attacks continued almost every day,” he said.