[Excerpt re: Cluster Munitions:] Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan

(whitehouse.gov – July 7, 2023)

…. As I mentioned, because we’ve seen all of these reports on the provision of cluster munitions to Ukraine, I will leave it to the Pentagon to make a formal announcement later this afternoon for the next drawdown package and to go into the details of that drawdown package and the specifics on the types of munitions being provided. But I will use this opportunity here today to make a few points.

First, we base our security assistance decision on Ukraine’s needs on the ground, and Ukraine needs artillery to sustain its offensive and defensive operations.

Artillery is at the core of this conflict. Ukraine is firing thousands of rounds a day to defend against Russian efforts to advance and also to support its own efforts to retake its sovereign territory.

We have provided Ukraine with a historic amount of unitary artillery rounds, and we are ramping up domestic production of these rounds. We’ve already seen substantial increases in production, but this process will continue to take time, and it will be critical to provide Ukraine with a bridge of supplies while our domestic production is ramped up. We will not leave Ukraine defenseless at any point in this conflict, period.

Second, Russia has been using cluster munitions since the start of this war to attack Ukraine. Russia has been using cluster munitions with high dud or failure rates of between 30 and 40 percent. In this environment, Ukraine has been requesting cluster munitions in order to defend its own sovereign territory. The cluster munitions that we would provide have dud rates far below what Russia is doing — is providing — not higher than 2.5 percent.

And third, we are closely coordinating with Ukraine, as it has requested these munitions. Ukraine is committed to post-conflict de-mining efforts to mitigate any potential harm to civilians. And this will be necessary regardless of whether the United States provides these munitions or not because of Russia’s widespread use of cluster munitions. We will have to continue to assist Ukraine with de-mining efforts no matter what, given the significant use of cluster munitions already perpetrated by Russia.

So the bottom line is this: We recognize that cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance. This is why we’ve deferred — deferred the decision for as long as we could. But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians because Ukraine does not have enough artillery. That is intolerable to us.

Ukraine would not be using these munitions in some foreign land. This is their country they’re defending. These are their citizens they’re protecting. And they are motivated to use any weapons system they have in a way that minimizes risks to those citizens. …

Q And one — this thing on cluster munitions. What convinced President Biden this was the right time to do cluster munitions, given the concern? Did Allies express concerns to him? And are you suggesting that the reason you’re providing cluster munitions is because Ukraine is running out of unitary artillery rounds? Is that — is that to backfill that?

MR. SULLIVAN: So, first, we have been looking at this for quite some time. And what we have been weighing is this basic question of civilian harm.

The challenge of cluster munitions, as you know, is that even at low dud rates there is some unexploded ordnance that is left, and that could potentially pose a risk to civilians down the road.

So we did not immediately come out of the gate and provide this. But we had to balance that against the risk to civilian harm if Ukraine did not have sufficient artillery ammunition.

We are reaching a point in this conflict, because of the dramatically high expenditure rates of artiller- — of artillery by Ukraine and by Russia, where we need to build a bridge from where we are today to when we have enough monthly production of unitary rounds that unitary rounds alone will suffice to give Ukraine what it needs.

So, as a result, this is the moment to begin the construction of that bridge so that there isn’t any period over this summer or heading into this fall when Ukraine is short on artillery and, being short on artillery, it is vulnerable to Russian counterattacks that could subjugate more Ukrainian civilians.

That is the thinking behind our decision. We consulted closely with allies in deciding to do this. And some allies who are not signatories to the Oslo Convention embraced it with open arms, said this is absolutely the right thing to do. Even allies who were signatories to the Oslo Convention, while they cannot formally support something that they’ve signed up to a convention against, have indicated both privately and, many of them, publicly over the course of today that they understand our decision and, fundamentally, that they recognize the difference between Russia using its cluster munitions to attack Ukraine and Ukraine using cluster munitions to defend itself, its citizens, and its sovereign territory.

So we feel that this will in no way disrupt the very strong, firm unity that we have heading into the NATO Summit in Vilnius next week.

Yeah.

Q Hey, thanks, Jake. To follow up on the cluster munitions, last year in March, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations — she described those munitions as, quote, “exceptionally lethal weaponry, which has no place on the battlefield.” So how do you square those comments with this decision?

And secondly, has Ukraine provided you with any assurances or guarantees, in terms of their use in civilian areas, that they won’t use them within a certain radius of civilian areas, for example?

MR. SULLIVAN: So, Ukraine has provided written assurances that it is going to use these in a very careful way that is aimed at minimizing any risk to civilians.

And, by the way, Ukraine — the democratically elected government of Ukraine has every incentive to minimize risk to civilians because it’s their citizens. It’s Ukrainians who they are trying to protect and defend. This is not Ukraine taking these and going and using them in the Middle East or in Southeast Asia or in some faraway land. They’re using them on their territory to defend their territory.

So we believe that they’re highly motivated to do this. And beyond being highly motivated, they have — to directly answer your question — provided these assurances to us.

In terms of the ambassador’s comments and other comments that have been bandied about, let me just say that the use of cluster munitions by Russia in this conflict is completely unacceptable on multiple counts.

First, they are using them to attack a sovereign country in flagrant violation of international law.

Second, they’re using them specifically to strike after civilian targets, not only military targets — also in flagrant violation of international law. And with this weapon system, as well as other weapon systems, we have identified war crimes committed by the Russians.

Third, and critically, there is a big difference between the type of cluster munition being used by Russia and the type that we would provide to Ukraine. As I mentioned before, ours have a maximum 2.5 percent dud rate; the dud rate of the Russian munitions is between 30 and 40 percent.

And, just so I don’t get this wrong, I will read it to you: The Department of Defense assesses that during the first year of the conflict alone, Russian-fired cluster munitions, deployed from a range of weapon systems, have likely expended tens of millions of submunitions, or bomblets, in Ukraine.

And then the final point. I think this is an important point. When I talk about what Russia is doing with cluster munitions, I’m not making an argument which says, “They do it, so we’ll do it.” The argument I’m making is that Russia has already spread tens of millions of these bomblets across Ukrainian territory. So we have to ask ourselves: Is Ukraine’s use of cluster munitions on that same land actually that much of an addition of civilian harm, given that that area is going to have to be de-mined regardless?

So that is why when we look at the situation today as opposed to a year ago, and when we look at what Ukraine would be doing with these weapons as opposed to what Russia is doing with these weapons, we see a substantial difference.

It doesn’t make it an easy decision, and I’m not going to stand up here and say it is easy. It’s a difficult decision. It’s a decision we deferred. It’s a decision that required a real, hard look at the potential harm to civilians.

 [full post appeared at whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2023/07/07/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-and-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-5/]