Russia has ‘sufficient stockpile’ of cluster bombs and will use them if needed: Putin

President Vladimir Putin said that Russia has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster bombs and that Moscow reserves the right to use them if such munitions are used against Russian forces in Ukraine.
“Оf course, if they are used against us, we reserve the right to take reciprocal action,” Putin said in a state TV interview, excerpts of which were published on Sunday.
Ukraine has received cluster bombs from the United States, munitions banned in more than 100 countries. Kyiv has pledged to only use them to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers.

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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that Moscow would be forced to use “similar” weapons if the United States supplied cluster bombs to Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported.

Cluster munitions are explosive weapons that typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets over a wide area. They are banned by over 100 countries, including Britain and Japan.

Shoigu was quoted as saying that Russia was in possession of cluster munitions but had so far refrained from using them in its military campaign.

However the US has previously accused Russia of using cluster munitions in Ukraine and said they have had a failure rate of up to 40 percent, leaving the ground littered with unexploded bomblets.

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