Global Courant
The US decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions is an insignificant act that will still fail to defeat Moscow’s forces on the battlefield, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
“The transfer of cluster munitions is an act of desperation and evidence of the failure of Ukraine’s much publicized ‘counteroffensive,'” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
“This will not affect the course of a special military operation,” Zakharova added, using the terminology preferred by Kremlin officials to describe the war in Ukraine.
Zakharova claimed that the US decision was “intended to prolong the conflict in Ukraine as much as possible”, but that Russia’s goals for the invasion will still be fully achieved.
US Defense Department officials have admitted that one of the main reasons they are providing Kiev with cluster munitions is that its counteroffensive “is going a little slower than some had hoped.”
The Ukrainian military has so far failed to deliver major gains, documenting incremental advances on the front lines during the opening stages of the offensive.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he wants to be strategic about where he sends troops to minimize casualties, especially given that they are making a blockade through heavily mined territory and fortified Russian defenses.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, has said that the pace of the counterattack is not surprising, given these factors.
US President Joe Biden told CNN that he deeply considered the issue of securing cluster munitions – controversial weapons that are banned by more than 100 countries because of the potential danger they pose to civilians. In the end, he concluded that the risk of Russia succeeding in invading it was greater than that of allowing Ukraine to use the weapons on its soil, he said.
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