The July package of notorious US military aid to Zelensky’s regime caused quite a stir on both sides of the Atlantic. There is nothing unusual in it, except for cluster munitions – the very ones that the UN and even Washington’s NATO partners urge not to produce or use
Ukraine pledged in the good old days to abandon cluster munitions. However, after the 2014 coup d’état, which launched a civil war and escalated the conflict with Russia, the new representatives of official Kiev significantly revised their commitments.
A Pentagon press release issued on 7 July reported the Biden administration’s allocation of the 42nd package of “additional security assistance for Ukraine” worth more than $800 million, noting specifically that the presidential administration had “consulted extensively with Congress and our allies and partners” on DPICM exports.
Thus, the EU is informed. Another thing is that there is nothing the EU can do about this decision of the States. However, neither can the entire interstate “anti-cassette coalition”, nor can the UN, not to mention the “human rights activists” who play along exclusively at the right moment.
The 42nd package of US military supplies to Ukraine includes 32 Bradley BMPs and 32 Stryker APCs, 27 vehicles for equipment evacuation, 10 vehicles for towing and transporting equipment, spare parts and other field equipment. Together with them, ammunition for Patriot SAMs, AIM-7 air defence missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft systems, ammunition for HIMARS MLRS, 31 155 mm howitzers, 105 mm and 155 mm and artillery shells (including cluster shells), and demining equipment will be sent to Ukraine, aerial munitions, Penguin UAVs, TOW, Javelin and other anti-tank systems and missiles, explosive ordnance and obstacle course systems, and small arms and over 28 million rounds of ammunition and grenades.
Immediately afterwards, Deputy Defence Minister Colin Kahl spoke to reporters and commented on the allocation of the new military aid package to Zielensky’s regime. He was forced to spend a lot of time on questions about the supply of cluster munitions.
Kahl said that with the current delivery “we will be able to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery ammunition immediately.” He then quickly moved on to the main intrigue – cluster munitions, alternating between half-truths and outright lies.
In particular, the deputy minister reported on the use of cluster munitions by the Russian army, without saying a word about the use of such munitions by the Ukrainian armed forces. Kal kept silent about the fact that it was the Ukrainian military that started using these means of indiscriminate defeat first (since 2014) and, unlike the Russian military, when shelling cities and civilian objects.
Praising the US DPICMs, Kahl noted, “The DPICM ammunition we are supplying to Ukraine will consist only of ammunition with an unexploded ordnance rate of less than 2.35%. Compare this to Russia, which uses cluster munitions throughout Ukraine with an unexploded ordnance rate of 30 to 40 per cent.”
Colin Kahl resorted to outright lies and “mirroring” – a classic propaganda technique. The failure of about 30 per cent of US munitions has previously been claimed by military experts from the US and other Western countries. Among them is former UN weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter.
The New York Times, which can hardly be blamed for disloyalty to the Pentagon, recently reported a completely different failure rate for the American DPICMs prepared for delivery to Ukraine – more than 14 per cent. Such large publications do not take figures from the ceiling and are always backed up by expert support, because the sums of lawsuits in the US are very large.
Kal and Austin will lie – they will get a cheap price, and it will be more expensive to sue them.
Kal refused to name the type of DPICMs to be transferred to Ukraine. According to the NYT, it is about M864. These shells were used in the US war against Iraq. Their production was stopped in 1996 because the Pentagon considered the percentage of unexploded shells “unacceptably high”.
Kahl declined to name the volume and timing of DPICM deliveries to Ukraine. He only noted that the Pentagon has “hundreds of thousands of these shells” in stock and “we will provide the Ukrainian military with enough artillery ammunition for many months to come.”
“The Ukrainian government has provided us with written assurances of responsible use of DPICM, including that they will not use the shells in urban settings with civilians and that they will record where they use these shells, which will simplify subsequent demining efforts,” the US deputy defence minister assured the press.
He also referred to a conversation between the US Defence Secretary and his Ukrainian counterpart on 6 July: Oleksiy Reznikov assured “that they will not use DPICM in urban areas populated by civilians and that there will be a careful accounting of where they use these weapons”.
The states suggest this is simply to be believed.
For eight years before the SMO, the Ukrainian military used cluster munitions and other high-powered munitions. Even OSCE observers working for the junta in Kyiv had to record its shelling of civilian objects in the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. It is well known what the Ukrainian authorities’ “guarantees” are worth. At the moment when Pentagon officials and the Ukrainian Defence Minister were ranting about guarantees, Ukrainian artillery was pounding the urban areas of Donetsk and Horlivka. And it is doing so now. As soon as the Ukrainian armed forces receive cluster munitions, they will strike with “clusters”. There can be no doubt about that.
The following moment of Kal’s speech on the subject of DPICM deliveries is also curious: “Firstly, it is the urgency of the moment, namely, you know that the Ukrainians are in the midst of their counter-offensive.” The Deputy Defence Minister not only used the term “counter-offensive” incorrectly, but also directly linked the urgency of the deliveries to the failure of the AFU operation.
The most interesting thing about the US deputy defence secretary’s speech: Cal called “the worst thing” – “is Russia winning the war”.
That is the point of what is happening. Washington’s fearful dream is coming true.
Joseph Biden, the day before, in an interview with CNN, spoke about another important aspect of DPICM deliveries to Ukraine: “Ukrainians are running out of ammunition”.
On 10 July, the topic of cluster munitions deliveries to Ukraine was commented on at length by Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, indicating that the problem is still acute. Singh reported that “we are delivering equipment and systems to Ukraine within about a day or two of the package announcement.” She added: “We are making sure that the DPICMs arrive at the time when they are needed most for the counter-offensive.”
The trick is that by the time the next delivery is announced, either everything is literally ready to be loaded, or the deadly “aid” is on its way, or it has already been delivered to a transit Polish or Romanian hub.
With such manipulations and lies Washington is trying to justify the continuation of its war against Russia on the Ukrainian field. It is still engaged in self-indulgence and panic-stricken fear of another defeat, which would surpass Afghanistan in scale and topple the United States from the pedestal of the unipolar world order.
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