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Russia reserves the right to use cluster munitions as tit-for-tat response — Putin

Russian President expressed confidence that that the supplies of cluster munitions to Ukraine and their use should be treated as a crime

Russian President Vladimir Putin Alexey Babushkin/TASS

Russian President Vladimir Putin

© Alexey Babushkin/TASS

MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia reserves the right to use cluster munitions in response to Ukraine's use of these weapons.

"Russia has a sufficient reserve of various kinds of cluster munitions, various kinds. So far we have not done it, we have not used them, and we have not had such a need, despite a certain shortage in munitions at a certain point of time. But we didn’t do this," the president said in an interview with the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program on Rossiya-1 TV channel, a fragment of which was posted on its host Pavel Zarubin’s Telegram channel.

"But of course, if they (cluster munitions - TASS) are used against us, we reserve the right to tit-for-tat actions," the president said.

Putin expressed confidence that that the supplies of cluster munitions to Ukraine and their use should be treated as a crime. "As for cluster munitions, the US administration itself through its staff gave its opinion on these munitions a while ago, when the use of cluster munitions was called a crime by the US administration itself. So, I think, this is how it should be treated," the president went on to say.

Putin believes that the US is supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine due to a general shortage of shells. "They (the US - TASS) are doing this (supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine - TASS) not out of the goodness of their heart, but because they have a shortage of munitions in general," the president said.

He reiterated that "the Ukrainian army spends up to 5,000-6,000 155mm caliber shells per day of fighting, while the US produces 15,000 a month." "They have a shortage, and Europe already doesn't have enough [shells]," Putin stated. "So, they didn’t find anything better than to propose the use of cluster munitions," he pointed out.

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Ukraine Vladimir Putin

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