2023-07-16 09:00:00
Moscow has a “good reserve” of cluster bombs, says Vladimir Putin
The Russian president affirmed, in an interview with the public television channel Rossia-1, broadcast on Sunday, that his army had a “good reserve” of cluster munitions. Washington has announced the forthcoming delivery to the Ukrainian army of these weapons, which are used very controversially, because the charges they disperse can cause many collateral civilian victims.
“So far we haven’t used them, we didn’t have to, even though we had a well-known ammunition shortage at one time.Vladimir Putin continued. But if they are used once morest us, we reserve the right to retaliate. »
On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had already said: “If the United States supplies cluster munitions to Ukraine, the Russian armed forces will be forced to use similar means of destruction. » According to the Russian president, the United States has announced that it will deliver these weapons because it has a “shortage of ammunition” to offer in Kyiv. “The Ukrainian army uses per combat day up to 5,000 or 6,000 155mm shells. But the United States produces 15,000 a month, they don’t have enough, and Europe doesn’t have enough either. They have nothing better to offer than to use cluster munitions”assured Mr. Putin.
These weapons are prohibited in a number of countries, notably European, signatories of the Oslo Convention of 2008, of which neither the United States, nor Ukraine, nor Russia are parties.
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