WASHINGTON: Ukraine has broadened a request for controversial cluster bombs from the United States to include a weapon that it wants to cannibalise to drop the anti-armor bomblets it contains on Russian forces from drones, according to two US lawmakers.

Kyiv has urged members of Congress to press the White House to approve sending the weapons but it is by no means certain that the Biden administration will sign off on that. Cluster munitions, banned by more than 120 countries, normally release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area, threatening civilians.

Ukraine is seeking the MK-20, an air-delivered cluster bomb, to release its individual explosives from drones, said US Representatives Jason Crow and Adam Smith, who both serve on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. That is in addition to 155mm artillery cluster shells that Ukraine already has requested, they said.

They said Ukrainian officials urged US lawmakers at last month’s Munich Security Conference to press for White House approval.

Ukraine hopes cluster munitions will give it an edge in the grinding fight against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government has said publicly that it wants US cluster munitions. The petition for MK-20s — also known as CBU-100s — has not been reported previously.

A National Security Council spokesperson said that while Ukraine and the White House “closely coordinate” on military aid, she had no “new capabilities to announce”.

“Human wave”

Ukraine wants the artillery rounds _ the Dual-Purpose Conventional Improved Munitions (DPICM) _ to halt the kinds of “human wave” attacks that Russia has mounted in its months-long drive to overrun the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, the lawmakers said.

Each shell disperses 88 submunitions.

The MK-20 is delivered by aircraft. It opens in mid-flight, releasing more than 240 dart-like submunitions, or bomblets.

The Ukrainian military believes these submunitions “have better armor-piercing capability” than the weapons it has been dropping from drones, said Smith, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

Ukraine, battling an enemy with more manpower and weaponry, has used drones extensively for surveillance and for dropping explosives on Russian forces.

Crow, a Democrat and US Army veteran, said he might support giving the MK-20 with assurances that Ukrainians would remove the bomblets and “use them in a non-cluster employment.”

Textron Systems Corporation stopped producing MK-20s in 2016 after the United States halted sales to Saudi Arabia but a congressional aide said there are more than 1 million of them in U.S. military stockpiles.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who also participated in last month’s conference, confirmed that Ukrainian officials in Munich urged U.S. lawmakers to press the White House to provide Kyiv with cluster munitions. He said he would do so this week.

The congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ukrainian officials also privately have been lobbying lawmakers in Washington to press for White House approval.

“That’s not going to happen,” Smith said, referring to Biden administration signoff.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2023