Cluster Bombs and Nuclear Plants: Are Russia’s Attacks War Crimes?

This story is part of War in Ukraine, CNET’s coverage of events there and of the wider effects on the world.

The call to investigate Russia for war crimes during its invasion of Ukraine intensified Sunday as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “we have seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would constitute a war crime.” Blinken made his comments on CNN’s State of the Union show.

The US Embassy in Kyiv also raised the alarm, tweeting that Russia’s attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant Friday was a war crime. Attacks on nuclear plants are prohibited by Article 56 of Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions. The Soviet Union adopted Protocol 1 in 1989, but President Vladimir Putin withdrew the country from it in 2019 during attacks on Syria.

In a Friday press conference, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “We have seen the use of cluster bombs and we have seen reports of use of other types of weapons which would be in violation of international law.” He added, “I also welcome the decision by the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into this.”

Also on Friday, Human Rights Watch denounced Russia’s use of cluster bombs, warning that they may constitute a war crime. Russia’s military actions in Ukraine have been referred to the International Criminal Court for an investigation by 39 countries, including the UK and Canada.

Cluster munitions detonate in midair and release smaller projectiles that are powerful enough to kill a person or destroy a vehicle. The submunitions can fail to detonate on impact, making them a danger long after hostilities have ceased.

Humanitarian organizations earlier reported that Russian military forces were using cluster munitions on at least two civilian areas — not military targets — in Ukraine last week, including a preschool.

Three people were killed on Feb. 25 when a 220mm Uragan rocket dropped a cluster bomb on the Sonechko kindergarten in Okhtyrka in northeastern Ukraine, according to Amnesty International.

One day earlier, a missile carrying cluster munitions reportedly exploded outside Central City Hospital in Vuhledar, Donetska in eastern Ukraine. Four civilians were killed, according to Human Rights Watch, and another 10 were injured (including six health care workers).

Here’s what you need to know about cluster bombs, why they’re so dangerous and whether the US has joined in banning their use.

What are cluster bombs?

Launched from the ground or dropped from the air, cluster bombs are a type of explosive that detonates in flight and release dozens or even hundreds of submunitions over a wide swath. 

A single cluster bomb attack can “saturate an area up to the size of several football fields,” according to the Cluster Munition Coalition, which campaigns against their use. That makes them the weapon of choice for forces looking to inflict damage as widely as possible.

While many cluster bombs are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles, some are intended to take out power lines or disperse land mines or chemical weapons.

Why are cluster munitions so dangerous?

Cluster munitions are incredibly indiscriminate in their targeting, often maiming or killing civilians.

Often the submunitions don’t explode on impact, posing a threat long after hostilities have ceased. According to the International Red Cross, cluster munitions can have a dud rate of up to 40%.

More than 1,200 Kuwaitis have been killed by cluster munitions since the end of the first Gulf War 30 years ago. In Vietnam, hundreds of civilians are wounded or killed every year by cluster bombs left behind by US and Viet Cong forces in the 1970s. 

The bombs are banned by an international treaty signed by dozens of countries. Though neither Russia nor Ukraine is among them, using cluster munitions on civilians could be considered a war crime.

Is Russia using cluster bombs in Ukraine?

Humanitarian groups were the first to accuse Russia of using cluster bombs in its assault on Russia, an allegation supported by NATO’s secretary-general.

Human Rights Watch says it has verified photographs submitted by hospital staff and posted to social media that show the nose cone and antenna of a 9N123 cluster munition warhead delivered by a 9M79-series Tochka ballistic missile.

Such warheads contain 50 submunitions, HRW reported, each of which contains 3.1 pounds of explosives and shatters into approximately 316 uniform fragments.

Amnesty International shared drone footage it says shows evidence of cluster munition damage on more than a half-dozen spots around a kindergarten in Okhtyrka, including on the building’s roof and sidewalk.

The strike “may constitute a war crime,” Amnesty International said in a statement.

The organization pointed to reporting from the open-source investigative site Bellingcat that indicates the remains of a 9M27K rocket were discovered 650 feet to the east of the school. With a range of about five to 20 miles, 9M27K rockets are packed with 30 submunitions, each of which carries more than a half-pound of explosives and shatters into up to 400 fragments.

On Monday, munitions expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told Reuters footage of shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, “does look very much like cluster bombs, and similar to those I’ve seen going off in Iraq and Syria. 

“The multiple explosions on impact of each warhead would suggest a cluster munition,” De Bretton-Gordon, a former British Army officer told the outlet. 

“We have seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weaponry into Ukraine. That includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs — the use of which directed against civilians is banned under the Geneva Conventions,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UN on Wednesday.

Russia has not commented on whether it is using the controversial munitions. Both the Ukraine military and Russia-backed separatists used cluster bombs during a 2015 conflict in eastern Ukraine, according to a Human Rights Watch report, though Ukraine has denied that allegation. 

What is the Convention on Cluster Munitions?

In 2008 the Convention on Cluster Munitions — a treaty prohibiting the use, production or stockpiling of the weapons — was signed by 120 nations, including Canada, Australia and numerous European nations.

Signatories also included several countries where such weapons have been used, such as Lebanon, Laos and Afghanistan. 

“There is no possible justification for dropping cluster munitions in populated areas,” Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said of the attack on the preschool in Okhtyrka, adding that it “shows flagrant disregard for civilian life.” 

Countries that declined to sign the treaty and continue to produce or amass cluster weapons include China, Brazil, Israel, India and Pakistan. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has signed the treaty.

Has the US signed the ban on cluster bombs?

To date, the US has refused to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions. In 2008, President George W. Bush’s administration declared the bombs were “legitimate weapons with clear military utility in combat.”

A 2008 Department of Defense directive ordered that all submunitions produced by the US had to have a failure rate of less than 1%. But in November 2017, a new policy under President Donald Trump allowed the use of cluster munitions that didn’t meet that 1% threshold “in extreme situations to meet immediate warfighting demands.”

The US last used cluster munitions during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, “with the exception of a single attack in Yemen in 2009.” 

The US has an estimated stockpile of 1 billion submunitions, though it only manufactures new cluster munitions for foreign sale, according to the Arms Control Commission.

What is a vacuum bomb?

On Monday, Ambassador of Ukraine to the US Oksana Markarova accused Russia of deploying vacuum bombs.

Consisting largely of fuel, vacuum bombs (also known as thermobaric weapons), suck in oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere and explode in a high-temperature fireball that can vaporize a human body.

While cluster bombs are used to devastate widespread areas, vacuum bombs generally target harder-to-reach sites like bunkers, tunnels and foxholes.

There has not been official confirmation that vacuum bombs have been used in the conflict in Ukraine, though on Feb. 26 a CNN crew reportedly spotted a Russian thermobaric multiple rocket launcher near Ukraine’s border.

Is there a ban on vacuum bombs?

Unlike cluster munitions, there is no international treaty specifically banning thermobaric weapons. But the use of weapons that don’t discriminate between civilians and military targets are broadly banned by the Geneva Conventions.

While neither Russia nor Ukraine is subject to the International Criminal Court, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said he was opening an investigation into the possibility of war crimes being committed during the invasion. 

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