We welcome the decision of the US to provide Ukraine with the new liberation weapons that will significantly help us to de-occupy our territories while saving the lives of the Ukrainian soldiers.
Under Article 51 of the UN Charter Ukraine has a universal internationally recognised right to self-defence and thus we have been officially requesting these types of munitions for a long time.
I would like to stress that in exercising our inalienable right to self-defence we will continue to strictly comply with all the international humanitarian conventions signed and ratified by Ukraine.
It is important to note that the russian federation has been indiscriminately using cluster munitions from day 1 of the unprovoked large-scale aggression. In February-March 2022 Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city with over a million population, was relentlessly bombarded by russians cluster munitions.
Our position is simple - we need to liberate our temporarily occupied territories and save the lives of our people. For this we need to inflict losses on the enemy - war criminals, rapists and looters - who are occupying our territories. The more losses we inflict on them the more lives of Ukrainian people we will be able to save.
It is in our interest to save the lives of our soldiers. This is why we will continue to do this using all lethal weapons available to us.
Regarding the cluster munitions, we have 5 key principles which we will abide by and which we have clearly communicated to all our partners, including the US. I have personally informed our US partners about these five principles in writing a long time ago.
1. Ukraine will use these munitions only for the de-occupation of our internationally recognised territories. These munitions will not be used on the officially recognized territory of russia.
2. We will not be using cluster munitions in urban areas (cities) to avoid the risks for the civilian populations - these are our people, they are Ukrainians we have a duty to protect.
Cluster munitions will be used only in the fields where there is a concentration of russian military. They will be used to break through the enemy defence lines with minimum risk for the lives of our soldiers. Saving the lives of our troops, even during extremely difficult offensive operations, remains our top priority.
3. Ukraine will keep a strict record of the use of these weapons and the local zones where they will be used.
4. Based on these records, after the de-occupation of our territories and our victory these territories will be prioritised for the purposes of de-mining. This will enable us to eradicate the risk from the unexploded elements of cluster munitions.
The Minister of Defence of Ukraine is by law acting as the Head of the national de-mining agency. In this capacity I will ensure the implementation of the relevant legal framework for the de-mining process after our victory.
5. We will report to our partners about the use of these munitions, and about their efficiency to ensure the appropriate standard of transparent reporting and control.
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