Laura Cooper, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia at the US Defence Department, has said that despite a global ban on the use of cluster munitions, they would help Ukraine push back against Russian forces.
Cooper made the remarks on Thursday night while addressing US lawmakers.
The Ukrainian government has called on members of Congress to press US President Joe Biden’s administration to approve sending Dual-Purpose Conventional Improved Munitions (DPICM) to Ukraine.
Cooper said the reason why such munitions have not been approved for Kiev yet is because of ‘congressional restrictions and concerns from US allies’.
However, from a battlefield effectiveness perspective, the Pentagon believes they are ‘useful’.
‘Our military analysts have confirmed that DPICMs would be useful especially against dug-in Russian positions on the battlefield,’ she told the lawmakers during a Congressional hearing.
‘The reason why you have not seen a move forward in providing this capability relates both to the existing congressional restrictions on the provision of DPICMs and concerns about allied unity.’
So far, the Biden administration has refrained from officially sending any cluster munitions to Ukraine.
However, even though the export of such weapons has been banned by Congress, media outlets such as Politico have suggested that Biden and even his Secretary of State Antony Blinken could potentially override this ban.
Dan Rice, an American adviser to the Ukrainian military, has also called on Washington give Kiev forces cluster munitions to fight Russia.
Rice said that the US ‘really needs to’ supply Kiev’s forces with cluster bombs to increase ‘base lethality’ and ‘win the war’ against Russia.
Cluster bombs are banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty that addresses the humanitarian consequences and unacceptable harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions through a categorical prohibition and a framework for action.
The weapons often contain dozens of smaller bomblets, dispersing over vast areas, which kill and maim civilians long after they are dropped.
The convention bans all use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs.
More than 100 countries have signed the treaty – but the United States has not.
Meanwhile, security and law enforcement authorities in the Zaporozhye Region have obtained evidence that Kiev is preparing a series of fake videos, with the participation of foreign media, in the city of Gulyaypole about allegedly heavy civilian casualties caused by the Russian army.
A spokesman for the region’s police said in a statement: ‘The Ukrainian side is plotting a campaign to discredit the Russian Armed Forces.
‘A series of videos will be prepared with the participation of foreign media testifying to an allegedly large number of civilians killed in the frontline zone as a result of the Russian army’s actions.
Kiev has repeatedly resorted to similar gimmicks, such as spreading falsehoods about alleged mass graves in Bucha, Kupyansk, and Kherson.
On April 3rd, 2022, the Russian Defence Ministry dismissed the Kiev regime’s accusations of killings of civilians in Bucha, in the Kiev Region.
The Russian Armed Forces had completely left Bucha as early as March 30 last year, however the so-called evidence of rumoured crimes appeared only four days later – after officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) arrived in the city. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the Bucha incident as a ‘fake attack’.
The Kiev regime, prompted by its Western masters, planned to launch a punitive operation in Donbass in February or March 2022, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin, who is also chair of the Russian Historical Society, said on Friday.
He added: ‘We had received enough information that a decision has been made in Kiev, and serious forces had been concentrated around Donbass to finally strangle it.
‘After the start of the special military operation, the actions of our military have discovered, so to speak, documents indicating that in fact Kiev, with the consent or even at the instigation of its Western masters, had planned to launch an essentially punitive operation at the end of February or the beginning of March 2022, which would have resulted in casualties among the residents of Donbass.
‘Despite the concluded, signed Minsk agreements, there were no results of these agreements, because neither the guarantors of the Minsk agreements on the part of the Kiev regime, represented by France and Germany, nor the Kiev regime during those eight years fulfilled the agreements.
‘And then, as you know, all these figures said that the Minsk agreements were needed in order to stall for time so that Ukraine could build up its military muscle.
‘Besides, the events of late 2021 show that the Western so-called former partners by no means agree to Russia’s proposals on security guarantees, on the creation of a real security regime on the European continent.
‘All these were the reasons for launching the special military operation.’
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s statement that Russia is allegedly preparing a terrorist attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is yet another attempt to smear Russia and cover up Kiev’s own criminal terrorist activities, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has stated.
Ryabkov said: ‘In this case, what we have is yet another attempt to smear Russia, to attribute non-existent intentions to us, and at the same time to cover up their own criminal and, in fact, terrorist actions, which pose a serious threat to the environment and to the protection of the population of vast territories from a potentially serious incident.’
Moscow has warned Kiev against instigating any potentially serious incidents at the ZNPP.
Ryabkov continued: ‘We have warned Kiev against such actions (regarding the ZNPP.
‘And we once again call on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its leadership to use the onsite presence of the agency’s experts directly at the plant to record all cases of attacks by the Ukrainian side, not to turn a blind eye to them, and clearly state who is to blame for what is happening, and where the real threat to this facility is coming from.’
Ryabkov also pointed out that it is Ukraine that ‘allows itself to conduct false flags and acts of incitement and for many months has been exposing the largest nuclear facility in Europe to serious danger.’
Zelensky said earlier that he had alerted the US, Brazil, India and China, as well as European, Middle and Far Eastern, and African countries about an alleged terrorist act being prepared by Russia at the Zaporozhye NPP involving the release of radiation.
The video message was posted just hours after it was announced that IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi would arrive in Russia on June 23rd.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed Zelensky’s statement as ‘yet another lie’.
