Human rights groups and Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States on Monday accused Russia of attacking Ukrainians with cluster bombs and vacuum bombs, weapons that have been condemned by a variety of international organizations.
Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, claimed that Russia used a vacuum bomb on the fifth day of its invasion of Ukraine.
The bomb, also known as a thermobaric weapon or aerosol bomb, draws oxygen from the atmosphere to create a bigger and more devastating explosion.
A thermobaric bomb sucks in oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion, typically producing a blast wave of a significantly longer duration than that of a conventional explosive and is capable of vaporizing human bodies.
“They used the vacuum bomb today,” said Markarova after meeting with members of the U.S. Congress. “…The devastation that Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine is large.”
Cluster munitions are a type of weapon that deploys a large number of smaller sub-munitions over a target. These sub-munitions then spread and explode over a larger area, increasing the potential for damage and casualties.
Due to the wide harm they can cause, cluster munitions are widely criticized as weapons that pose “an immediate threat to civilians during conflict” and for the “long-lasting” problems they can cause if sub-munitions do not explode upon first impact.
More than 100 countries have banned their use and signed up to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. However, neither Russia nor Ukraine (which also possesses cluster munitions) has put their name to this agreement.
Russia has continued to use them, most notably in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and later in Syria.
Ukraine strongly denied using cluster munitions during the conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country in 2015, despite a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that stated they likely had.
A number of conflicting claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While NJTODAY takes utmost care to accurately report all news stories, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos. We shall do out best to keep readers informed about developing news.