Russia threatening to use cluster weapons. Here are 12 times they already have

Russia is big mad over the West supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine. It threatened to use its own cluster munitions if Ukraine deploys them in the war. Russia has a large stockpile of terrible cluster munitions, so Ukraine has to tread carefully. Otherwise, Russia might... Hold on. Let me check my notes, actually.

Oh, Russia first fired cluster munitions into Ukraine in 2014? And it has been doing so with much greater frequency since February 2022, the start of its wider invasion of Ukraine?

Look: Cluster munitions are, in general, terrible. They cause widespread devastation. Russian-made ones have high failure rates that turn them into indiscriminate landmines. When stolen or sold illegally, they are broken down into grenades for criminal use. There is actually a good argument for banning them from war.

And, Ukraine thinks that over 67,000 square miles of territory is contaminated with cluster munitions that have already killed hundreds or thousands. It's reported 226 Ukrainians died from the contamination in March 2023.

But Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. all refused to sign the ban treaty. And Ukraine has already fired the weapons at Russian troops and Russian-backed separatists. And, Russia is firing them regularly at Ukrainian troops. So any Russian pearl-grasping here is both insincere and hypocritical. As Human Rights Watch put it in a May 23, 2023 report:

Let's take a quick tour of Russia's recent history of firing cluster munitions in Ukraine. (These are a summarized version of a Human Rights Watch list. You can find the more complete list, along with a few more attacks with cluster munitions conducted by Ukraine, here. A 2014 investigation of probable Ukrainian uses of the weapons is also available here.)

Russia is accused of using cluster munitions "at least 24 times" at the start of its wider invasion of Ukraine.

Russia fires a ballistic missile with submunitions at a train station as families evacuated, killing 58 and injuring over 100.

Russia fires rockets with cluster munitions into a suburb of Kyiv.

Russia fires a rocket with submunitions at Karkiv, wounding a man outside a maternity clinic.

Russian rocket attack kills one, wounds three civilians with cluster munitions.

Russia kills two, wounds another with a rocket attack with submunitions.

Russia kills an elderly man and wounds two women when it hits an apartment building with cluster munitions.

Two civilians die and Russia wounds another 12 when its first cluster munition rockets at a public transportation station in Myolaiv.

Russia fires a series of cluster munitions attacks against Kherson, wounding at least three people.

Russia kills two civilians and wounds 10 more with cluster munitions in Hirnyk, Donetska.

Two cluster munition rocket attacks hit Konstyantynivka and Kramatorsk, killing two and wounding at least 14.

Three emergency room workers and five other people are injured by a Russian cluster munition attack.

The point of this list is not to say that any Ukrainian use of the weapon is justified. Ukraine is taking a dangerous route, and it should wrestle hard with the decision of whether to increase the long-term risk to its civilians by using cluster munitions or to abstain and accept the sharper, more immediate risk to its service members.

Frankly, none of us in the West are in the position to decide for them. Remember, Russia is credibly accused of stealing almost 20,000 Ukrainian children and deliberately erasing the tracks so they can never be reunited with their families. Ukraine has to decide whether to take the poison pill further contaminating its own country with submunitions.

But for Russia to cry foul is at least as ridiculous as when Germany protested the use of shotguns in World War I while spraying chemical gas attacks across the front. Russia has no leg to stand on. And if it doesn't want to face Ukrainians firing cluster munitions, it can always get out of Ukraine.