KIEV, Ukraine
The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine has accused pro-Russian separatists of using cluster munitions, two days after Human Rights Watch said Ukrainian government forces were guilty of the crime.
After a week-long investigation in eastern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said it had documented widespread use of cluster munitions in fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in more than a dozen urban and rural locations, adding that Ukrainian forces had used them in populated areas in Donetsk city in early October 2014.
But Andrey Lisenko, the spokesperson for the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said on Wednesday: "We have evidence to prove that separatists have used cluster bombs and 'Smerch' multiple rockets against army troops conducting an anti-terror operation."
Lisenko said the Ukrainian army did not use, and would not use, in its anti-terror operations weapons which were forbidden under international treaties.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty signed in 2008 and which entered into force in August 2010, prohibits all use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions.
Cluster munitions were deemed unacceptable as they fail to distinguish between civilians and combatants and the use of them leaves behind large numbers of dangerous unexploded ordnance.
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