MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/. Senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky on Friday said the US decision to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine showed Washington is more concerned about stopping Russia from winning than keeping civilians out of harm’s way.

"The White House's reasoning behind the decision to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine is the height of cynicism and simply monstrous. The war unleashed by the West against Russia will indeed go on until the last Ukrainian," said the lawmaker, who is the chairman of the Committee on International Affairs at the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

He also said, "Washington is more concerned about preventing Russia from winning the Ukrainian conflict than it is about the damage to civilians in Ukraine from cluster bombs and shells, which is imminent but yet only collateral for the US."

Slutsky went on to say that the issue should be raised at the UN Security Council.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Friday said that the United States had decided to transfer to Ukraine cluster munitions, even as the United Nations opposes the use of them. He also said that Kiev had provided Washington with written guarantees that US cluster munitions will be used with minimal risks to civilians.

Farhan Haq, a deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, earlier said that the UN chief supports the Convention on Cluster Munitions and opposes the use of this type of weapons on the battlefield.

 

Cluster munitions

 

Cluster bombs can contain hundreds of submunitions. When the bomb is detonated in the air, the submunitions are scattered over an area of tens of square meters. Some of them do not explode immediately and remain on the ground, posing a threat to civilians long after the conflict has ended. The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which was adopted in 2008, has been joined by 111 countries, and another 12 have signed but not yet ratified it.

According to the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch, the proportion of unexploded submunitions is usually significantly higher than stated.