NEW YORK, September 26. /TASS/. The Pentagon recommended that the White House began delivering white phosphorus munitions to the Kiev government, the NBC television channel reported citing US officials.

According to the report, senior Pentagon officials have recommended that the US provide Ukraine with white phosphorus munitions for use on the battlefield, but the White House has rejected the idea several times.

According to the sources, the Department of Defense recommended providing the white phosphorus shells to Ukraine as part of several recent aid packages. The officials said, however, that even if the munitions are sent to Ukraine, a public announcement on the issue is unlikely.

White phosphorus is used for military purposes in aerial bombs, aviation cluster ammunition, artillery shells and mines. Incendiary weapons are considered to be conventional but Protocol 3 of the 1980 UN Convention on Inhuman Weapons bans their use against civilians and civilian facilities, as well as in strikes on military targets in civilian areas. Human rights organizations have long been calling for designating white phosphorus munitions as chemical weapons.