This report presents the types of cluster munitions being used in the international armed conflict in Ukraine in 2022 and the civilian casualties immediately suffered and civilian objects damaged.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian armed forces have used at least six types of cluster munitions in attacks that have caused hundreds of civilian casualties and damaged civilian objects, including homes, hospitals and schools. Evidence indicates that Ukrainian forces have also used cluster munitions at least once.
The exact number of Russian cluster munition attacks is not known, but hundreds have been documented, reported, or alleged to have occurred, many in populated areas. At least eight of Ukraine’s 24 oblasts (provinces) have been struck by cluster munitions: Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Sumy.
In the city of Mykolaiv, Russian forces launched cluster munition rockets into populated areas on March 7, 11 and 13, killing and injuring civilians and damaging homes, businesses and civilian vehicles. One of the March 13 attacks appeared to have killed 9 people who were waiting in line at a cash machine.
The Russian government has not denied using cluster munitions in Ukraine. It has accused Ukraine of using cluster munitions in the city of Donetsk on March 14, but this incident has not been independently confirmed.[1]
Media reports also indicate that Ukrainian forces used cluster munitions in Husarivka in Kharkiv oblast on March 6 or 7, when Russia forces occupied the village. The Ukrainian government has not denied this use of cluster munitions and stated that the Armed Forces of Ukraine “strictly adhere to the norms of international humanitarian law.”[2]
Thirty-six countries have condemned the cluster munition attacks in Ukraine, as have the European Union, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, NATO’s secretary-general and others.
Cluster munitions can be delivered by rockets, missiles, and aircraft. They open to disperse dozens and even hundreds of small submunitions or bomblets over an area the size of a city block. Many submunitions fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that act like landmines, posing a threat to civilians for years and even decades.
The cluster munitions currently being used in Ukraine are launched from the ground in rockets and missiles with the exception of the RBK-series cluster bomb, which is delivered by aircraft. The cluster munitions were all manufactured in Russia, some as recently as 2021, or its predecessor the Soviet Union.
According to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service a total of 98,864 items of unexploded ordnance including submunitions and landmines have been cleared and destroyed in the war, as of May 9.[3] During the first seven weeks of the conflict, 29 workers were reportedly killed while doing demining and related work, and 73 were injured.[4] On April 17, three people working for Kharkiv’s emergency services were killed while clearing cluster munition remnants.[5]
Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed armed groups have both used cluster munitions in the past; namely, in eastern Ukraine between July 2014 and February 2015, according to investigations conducted by Human Rights Watch, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission, and others.[6]
The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits these weapons due to their indiscriminate effect and the long-lasting danger posed to civilians.[7] It provides a comprehensive ban and requires the destruction of stockpiles, clearance of areas contaminated by cluster munitions remnants, and assistance to victims. However, Russia and Ukraine are not among the treaty’s 110 states parties. Nonetheless, the use of cluster munitions in populated areas invariably violates international humanitarian law prohibitions on the use of weapons that cannot discriminate between civilians and combatants.
Source: Human Rights Watch