Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia reserves the right to use cluster munitions in response to Ukraine's use of these weapons, TASS reports.
"Russia has a sufficient reserve of various kinds of cluster munitions, various kinds. So far we have not done it, we have not used them, and we have not had such a need, despite a certain shortage in munitions at a certain point of time. But we didn’t do this," the president said in an interview with the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program on Rossiya-1 TV channel, a fragment of which was posted on its host Pavel Zarubin’s Telegram channel.
"But of course, if they are used against us, we reserve the right to tit-for-tat actions", the president said.
Putin expressed confidence that that the supplies of cluster munitions to Ukraine and their use should be treated as a crime. "As for cluster munitions, the US administration itself through its staff gave its opinion on these munitions a while ago, when the use of cluster munitions was called a crime by the US administration itself. So, I think, this is how it should be treated", the Russian president went on to say.
Putin believes that the US is supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine due to a general shortage of shells. "They are doing this not out of the goodness of their heart, but because they have a shortage of munitions in general", the Russian leader said.
He reiterated that "the Ukrainian army spends up to 5,000-6,000 155mm caliber shells per day of fighting, while the US produces 15,000 a month". "They have a shortage, and Europe already doesn't have enough", Putin stated. "So, they didn’t find anything better than to propose the use of cluster munitions", he pointed out.
