Why the U.S. decision to give Ukraine cluster bombs has sparked concerns
William Taylor :
An enormous difference, Amna, an enormous — that's exactly the problem. They are going to run out of artillery, ammunition if they don't get these weapons.
If we had another kind of the normal kind of these weapons, these ammunition, we would use them. We would provide them. The Ukrainians would use them. That's what they have been asking for. What they're asking for is ammunition for their artillery, so that they can defend themselves and they can push the Russians out.
The other point, Amna, is that that there's going to — exactly as Marc says, no matter what the dud rate, whether it's 3 percent or 5 percent or 2 percent, whether — it turns out that the Russian rate is like 30 percent. So it's incredible. But that makes the point.
After this war, the Ukrainians say, after the victory, they are going to have to clean up a lot of unexploded ordnance from around their battlefields. And most of that are coming from the Russian mines. Right now, what's keeping the counteroffensive from going very well, is keeping the Ukrainians from breaking through the Russian lines are mines.
And after the — after the victory, as the Ukrainians say, they're going to have to clean up, find all these mines. And when they look for those mines, they will be looking for the duds from the cluster munitions as well. So they're going to have to clean it up. They know where they're going to be firing it.
They know where the Russian mines are. They know where the Russian cluster munitions have been used. So it's going to be an enormous cleanup before they can use that land again.
Source: PBS NewsHour
