"When we start firing the cluster munitions, the Russians disappear under hard cover. They won’t even poke their noses out,” said Stanislav, a Ukrainian military official standing a few miles from the front line in a blackened forest still smoldering from Russian shelling.
The artillery crew first received US-made cluster munitions a few weeks ago following President Biden’s decision to send the weapon in the most controversial arms transfer of his presidency.
"It’s a positive thing. It helps us to significantly increase Russian losses in equipment and in lives,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in an interview.
When it comes to offensive operations, Ukraine uses munitions to fire into dense forests when the precise location of Russian forces is unknown, to hit unarmored vehicles, and to spray bomblets over infantry to keep them burrowed in foxholes and unable to return fire.
Ukrainian soldiers said cluster munitions also allow their advancing forces to get closer to fortified Russian positions because enemy infantry stay burrowed in their bunkers. "They don’t stick their heads out when cluster fire is happening,” another soldier said.
Another tactic is to flush out Russian infantry from their foxholes using more powerful artillery and then switching to cluster munitions once they have surfaced. "It just depends on the objective,” a Ukrainian soldier said.
While the cluster bombs bring a qualitative military benefit, they also provide quantitative advantage at a time when Ukraine needs more ammunition to extend the scope of the counteroffensive.
www.anews.az
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