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HRW Confirms Russia Dropped Cluster Bombs on Kharkiv

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“Using cluster munitions in populated areas shows a brazen and callous disregard for people’s lives,” said the human rights group.

Russian forces used cluster bombs during attacks on Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv in what may amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said Friday.

“Using cluster munitions in populated areas shows a brazen and callous disregard for people’s lives,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.

The new assessment of Monday strikes on Kharkiv, an eastern city home to over 1.4 million people, is based on photos and video evidence verified by the human rights group and was presented as Russia faces increasing global condemnation over its ongoing invasion, which has stoked fears of nuclear disaster and has already forced over one million people to flee Ukraine.

HRW already confirmed last week use of cluster munitions by Russian forces in a February 24 strike just outside a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Vuhledar. The new assessment focuses on munitions that hit the Moskovskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, and Industrialnyi districts of Kharkiv on February 28.

The rights group—which noted the “inherently indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions and their foreseeable effects on civilians”—based its new assessment on interviews with two witnesses and an analysis of 40 videos and photographs, which revealed information on explosion signatures and remnants of the rockets.

The munitions used in the Kharkiv strikes, said HRW, were delivered by Russian-made 9M55K Smerch cluster munition rockets.

Over 120 nations have signed on to an international treatybanning the use, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions, which can pose deadly harm far beyond initial explosions, as unexploded submitions becoming akin to landmines. The Cluster Munition Caolition describes the weapons as being able to “saturate an area up to the size of several football fields.”

Neither Russia, Ukraine, nor the U.S., however, is state party to the treaty.

“We are seeing mounting evidence of indiscriminate attacks on Kharkiv and the price civilians are paying for these serious violations,” said HRW’s Goose.

“If these deadly acts were carried out either intentionally or recklessly,” he added, “they would be war crimes.”

The head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) also said Friday that Russian forces have used cluster bombs in its attacks on Ukraine.

“We have seen the use of cluster bombs and we have seen reports of use of other types of weapons which would be in violation of international law,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters.

Amnesty International has also previously confirmed Russian forces’ use of cluster bombs on Ukraine, and open source investigative outlet Bellingcat has also been tracking Russia’s use of the weapons during the invasion.

In a Wednesday statement, the U.K. presidency of the Convention on Cluster Munitions expressed “grave” concern about reports of Russia using the weapons in strikes on Ukraine, noting that cluster bombs “have had a devastating impact on civilians in many conflict areas.”

The Cluster Munition Coalition, in a Wednesday tweet, said, “We welcome the growing number of states speaking out on—and urge all states to condemn—the unacceptable use of cluster munitions by Russian forces in Ukraine.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by ANDREA GERMANOS and republished under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Russia Condemned for Alleged Use of Cluster Bombs in Ukraine

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There must be “an immediate halt to use of the internationally banned weapon,” said the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munition Coalition.

Allegations on Friday that Russian forces have used cluster munitions in its ongoing assault on Ukraine elicited sharp condemnation Friday from critics of the indiscriminate weapons.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC) expressed alarm in a statement about “the threat of further harm to civilians including humanitarian mine action partners.”

“We call for an immediate halt to use of the internationally banned weapon, and urge all parties to guarantee protection of civilians, respect for international humanitarian law, and the international norm banning use of cluster munitions and landmines,” the group said.

One hundred twenty-three nations have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions, committing states to ban the use, production, stockpiling, or transfer of the weapons, which disperse bomblets over a widespread area and pose lasting threats as unexploded fragments become de facto landmines.

The international treaty also obligates signatories to destroy their stockpiles of the weapons. Neither Ukraine, Russia, nor the United States are signatories to the international treaty.

ICBL-CMC’s statement came after the New York Timesreported Thursday that remnants left by a likely Russian strike near a hospital in the eastern Ukrainian city of Vuhledar “suggest the possible use of cluster munitions.”

The Times referenced a tweet by Mark Hiznay, associate arms director at Human Rights Watch, in which he shared photos from the Ukraine Weapons Tracker account purportedly showing the aftermath of the attack:

The Washington Post also reported Thursday that “as it encircled Ukraine in recent weeks, the Russian military brought forward an array of aircraft capable of firing guided air-to-ground missiles or dropping ‘dumb’ munitions such as cluster or fragmentation bombs.”

Further evidence suggesting Russia has used the pernicious weapons came Friday from independent and open source investigative outlet Bellingcat, which shared in Twitter posts photos of a cluster munition canister in the eastern Ukraine city of Okhtyrka and said the canister’s location just a short distance from a school means it “may be connected” to an alleged attack on a local kindergarten.

Russia’s alleged attack on a kindgergarten as well as an orphanage in Okhtyrka prompted Ukraine to call for a war crimes investigation.

In a Friday tweet, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote: “Today’s Russian attacks on a kindergarten and an orphanage are war crimes and violations of the Rome Statute. Together with the general prosecutor’s office we are collecting this and other facts, which we will immediately send to the Hague. Responsibility is inevitable.”

Human rights groups have expressed concern about harm to civilians, including through the potential use of cluster munition, since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Thursday.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, accused the Russian military of having displayed “a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas.”

“Some of these attacks may be war crimes,” she said in a Friday statement. “The Russian government, which falsely claims to use only precision-guided weapons, should take responsibility for these acts.”

Advocacy group CIVIC also lamented Friday that “the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine is rising” and called on “warring actors” to “avoid using weapons that result in indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects.”

“Some of these weapons,” the group said, “include unguided munitions, multiple launch rocket systems, banned cluster munitions, and other explosive weapons with wide-area effect.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by ANDREA GERMANOSand republished under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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