Russia used cluster munitions in Odessa missile attack, Kiev says
- World
- DPA
- Published Date: 03:55 | 30 April 2024
- Modified Date: 03:55 | 30 April 2024
Russia fired cluster munitions among the missiles used in its attack on Ukraine's port city of Odessa, Ukrainian sources said on Tuesday.
"It is an indiscriminate weapon that can cause significant casualties among the civilian population," the Ukrainian public prosecutor's office said on Telegram of the attack that occurred on Monday.
Metal fragments were found within a 1.5-kilometre radius of the impact site, the statement said.
It was accompanied by a video showing blasts generated by the Iskander ballistic missile, which cased the deaths of five people and injured 30 more.
The Ukrainian public prosecutor's office accused the Russian officers responsible of deliberately using the weapon to kill as many civilians as possible.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Amid the conflict, both sides have deployed cluster munitions, explosive weapons which scatter submunitions, though their use is prohibited.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine has signed the international convention on banning cluster munitions, which entered force in 2010.
Ukraine recently fired US-supplied missiles armed with this kind of ammunition at targets on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.
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