The first footage of the use of American cluster munitions by the Ukrainian military, – The Telegraph
It is reported that the shells are used by the 14th brigade in the Kupyan direction. They will also be used on the Bakhmut direction. And given that today we saw their use in… pic.twitter.com/QEsWgneCHy
— Lew Anno Suport #Ukraine 24/2-22 (@anno1540) July 20, 2023
(Washington Examiner) ‘EVERYTHING IS BURNING’: United States-provided cluster munitions made their debut on the battlefields of Ukraine this week, with Ukrainian commanders reporting they are making a difference as efforts continue to break through Russian defenses.
“We have gotten some initial feedback from the Ukrainians, and they’re using them quite effectively,’ NSC spokesman John Kirby said in a White House briefing. “They’re using them appropriately … and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s defensive formations and Russia’s defensive maneuvering.”
Intercepted messages posted on Twitter by a pro-Ukrainian media platform indicate the controversial weapons are having a psychological impact on entrenched front-line Russian troops. “At the moment, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are demolishing our positions in the Bakhmut direction with cluster munitions,” one message says. “The counter-battery fight does not work. Everything is burning all around. The men are holding on, waiting for aviation. The General Staff has not yet handed over cluster bombs and rockets with cluster munitions to our guys for answers. It remains only to believe in our guys and our pilots.”
Kirby described the current level of fighting as “pretty vicious,” and said Ukraine admits its counteroffensive is “not going as far or as fast on a daily basis as they would like.”
“There is an awful lot of contact between the forces all along that front, all the way from Bakhmut, where Ukrainians are trying to encircle the city … down to Zaporizhzhia and even Kherson, [where] the Ukrainians are continuing to try to probe and to find a way to break through the Russian defenses.”
“Standing in their way are sometimes three-deep Russian lines of defense, and, of course, some significant minefields. It is difficult to go through a minefield … when you’re being shelled, which the Ukrainians are.”
PRIORITY ON ‘FOUR As,’ NOT F-16s: In a separate interview on Fox News, Kirby said that U.S. F-16s will likely join the battle by the end of the year, but quickly added, “It’s not our assessment that the F-16s alone would be enough to turn the tide here.”
“What they really need are the four As: artillery, ammunition, air defense, and armor tanks,” he said. “And on all four of those, we have provided an extraordinary amount of support at, quite frankly, unprecedented speed.”
“That’s why the president made a difficult decision to provide cluster munitions as a bridging solution, as we build up our production capacity of normal, conventional artillery rounds. That’s what they’re firing, thousands of them a day. It’s really a gunfight.”
“Defense is the stronger form of war. So, we knew this was going to be a tough slog for the Ukrainians. And it has turned out to be that,” Kirby added.
FALSE FLAG WARNING: As Russia refused to extend the Black Sea grain deal, it issued an ominous threat to all ships going in or out of Ukrainian seaports. “With the Black Sea Grain Initiative expired, all vessels heading for Ukrainian ports via the Black Sea will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo” subject to attack by Russian warships.
“It’s important to remind them and the whole world that civilian ships in the Black Sea, in this case, would be doing nothing more than trying to get food to people that need food,” said Kirby. “And there’d be no basis whatsoever, no legal basis for an attack on a civilian ship.”
