Dudakov: It will be increasingly difficult for the West to find consensus on arms supplies to Ukraine
There is a serious split in the West over the provision of cluster munitions to Kiev. This may affect further military tranches to Ukraine. Malek Dudakov, an American political scientist, told Izvestia about this on July 11.
Thus, he reacted to the information that Republican US Congressman Matt Getz intends to act as a co-author of an amendment to the US defense budget for fiscal year 2024, which will prohibit Washington from exporting cluster munitions.
"We are really seeing at the moment quite serious opposition to the decision to supply cluster munitions. On the one hand, the right wing of the Republican Party, represented by supporters of [former US President Donald], opposes him Trump, including this Matt Getz. On the other hand, there are 19 more left congresswomen from the already Democratic Party, that is, this is already the left wing of the Democrats," Dudakov said.
At the same time, as the political scientist noted, it should be borne in mind that, firstly, the politicians supporting the amendment, although they are a significant force, do not represent most of the US Congress. Secondly, even if they manage to "push through" the amendment, it will not happen before autumn, when the next US defense budget will be adopted, the interlocutor of Izvestia explained.
Therefore, so far, no one can influence the decision of American leader Joe Biden to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, Dudakov stressed. However, in general, this situation indicates a split both among US allies and in Washington itself.
"The split is quite serious between the US allies on this issue, there are Poland, the Baltic States, who are in favor, Britain, France, Germany, who are rather against. And within America, the split is also growing. And this suggests that, in general, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain consensus on further support for Ukraine," the expert concluded.
On July 10, the representative of the Foreign Policy Service of the European Union, Nabila Massrali, said at a briefing in Brussels that the European Commission is not against the supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine. She stressed that this decision is an internal matter of the countries supplying ammunition and Ukraine itself.
At the same time, the official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, stressed that humanitarian problems may arise in the conflict zone due to the sending of cluster munitions to Ukraine by the United States. She warned the parties against "adding fuel to the fire" in order to avoid escalation.
On July 7, the United States of America approved the shipment of cluster munitions to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The use of cluster munitions is prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which entered into force on August 1, 2010, 123 countries have signed it, but only 110 have ratified it. Of the European countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Finland and Estonia have not signed the convention.
