Washington: National security adviser Jake Sullivan announced on Friday that the Biden administration will give Ukraine thousands of cluster munitions, pledging that the US will not abandon Ukraine without defence and that Kyiv has pledged to use the contentious weapons sensibly.

The choice was made on the eve of the NATO summit in Lithuania, where President Joe Biden is likely to be grilled by allies about why the US would send a weapon into Ukraine that more than two-thirds of alliance members have outlawed because it has a history of killing a lot of civilians.

The US sees the munitions as a way to get Kyiv the ammunition it desperately needs to bolster its offensive and break through Russian front lines. The munitions are bombs that open in the air and release a number of smaller bomblets. Before Biden made the final decision this week, US leaders had been debating the complex issue for months.

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The US will send a version of the munition that has a lower "dud rate," which means fewer of the smaller bomblets will fail to explode, according to Sullivan, who defended the choice. Unintentional deaths are caused by the unexploded rounds, which frequently litter battlefields and densely populated areas.

He stated at a White House briefing that "we recognise the cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance." "For this reason, we've put off making a decision as long as we could. But because Ukraine lacks sufficient artillery, there is also a significant risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks overrun Ukrainian positions, seize more Ukrainian territory, and oppress more Ukrainian civilians. 

To us, that is intolerable.

The International Committee of the Red Cross claims that up to 40% of the time, some cluster munitions leave behind bomblets that do not explode. There will be fewer unexploded bombs left behind to potentially harm civilians because the rate of unexploded ordnance for the ammunition going to Ukraine is under 3%.

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More than 120 nations have ratified a convention that prohibits the use of cluster bombs. These nations have also committed to clearing the weapons after they have been used. Among those who have not joined are the US, Russia, and Ukraine.

The majority of NATO members have endorsed the cluster munitions ban, according to Ryan Brobst, a research analyst for the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, but some of the closest NATO allies to Russia, including Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Turkey, have not.

Poland and Romania stand out as the most significant of these, according to Brobst, who noted that it is likely that the US weapons will pass through those nations on their way to Ukraine. "While some allies voice concerns, (cluster munitions) will still be transferred into Ukraine despite these concerns,"

The US will send Ukraine a new $800 million military aid package that includes the cluster munitions. According to officials, the delivery on Friday will also include Bradley and Stryker armoured vehicles as well as a variety of ammunition, including rounds for howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Having the cluster bombs available will also relieve pressure on the country's meagre ammunition supplies. Concerns have been raised about the US consuming American supplies after it began sending copious quantities of 155 mm rounds to Ukraine. The same artillery that fires 155 mm rounds can also fire cluster munitions, which will give Ukraine a highly lethal capability and enable them to hit more Russian targets with fewer rounds.

Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder stated that the Defence Department has "multiple variants" of the munitions and that "the ones that we are considering providing would not include older variants with (unexploding) rates that are higher than 2.35 percent." Brig. Gen. Ryder made these remarks at a Pentagon briefing on Thursday.

According to his statement, the US "would be carefully selecting rounds with lower dud rates, for which we have recent testing data."

Allies haven't responded much thus far. On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg emphasised that the military alliance does not have a position on cluster munitions and that the decision will be made by allies. Germany, a signatory to the ban treaty, also stated that it would not give the bombs to Ukraine but did express sympathy for the American stance.

According to German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit, the US friends of Germany "were not hasty in their decision to provide such ammunition. We must keep in mind that Russia has already made extensive use of cluster munitions during its unlawful war of aggression against Ukraine.

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Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine's parliament who has been pushing for Washington to send more weapons, pointed out that in a large portion of the territory they are taking back from Russia, Ukrainian forces have had to deactivate mines. Ukrainians will be able to collect any cluster munitions-related unexploded ordnance as part of that process.

Ustinova said, "We will have to de-mine anyhow, but it's better to have this capability.

According to the Pentagon, the last significant American use of cluster bombs occurred during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Human Rights Watch claims that however, during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, US forces regarded them as a crucial weapon. It is estimated that the US-led coalition dropped more than 1,500 cluster bombs in Afghanistan during the first three years of that conflict.

Cluster bomb opponents claim that they kill without mercy and put civilians in danger long after they have been used.

The UN human rights office representative Marta Hurtado stated on Friday that "the use of such munitions should stop immediately and not be used in any place."

The Russian Federation and Ukraine will be urged to join the more than 100 states that have ratified the cluster munitions convention, effectively outlawing their use, she continued.