Ukraine records world's highest number of cluster munition casualties over past year – rights activists

The figures were published in the annual report of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), Ukrinform reports, citing RFI.

According to the CMC, Russia has "widely" used these banned weapons since the first day of the war, with Ukraine recording the world's highest annual toll of cluster munition casualties.

In 2024, 314 people were recorded as killed or injured by cluster munitions globally, including 193 in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, more than 1,200 Ukrainian casualties have been registered, most of them in 2022. However, the report stresses that the real number is likely much higher, as Ukraine endured about 40 cluster munition attacks last year alone, with no casualty figures reported.

Cluster munitions are launched from aircraft or artillery. They explode in the air, scattering smaller bomblets over a wide area. Many fail to detonate on impact, posing a lethal risk for years.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine is among the 112 states that are party to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use, transfer, production, and stockpiling of these weapons. Myanmar and Syria, where cluster munition attacks were also reported in 2024, have likewise not joined the treaty.

The United States, also not a party to the convention, supplied Ukraine with cluster munitions in 2023. That same year, then-National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby noted that Ukraine was using them "effectively" and "appropriately," targeting military objectives deep in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.

Photo: Human Rights Watch