The United States ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas Greenfield, sounded the alarm on Wednesday about the intensification of the Russian attack in Ukraine: “And now it seems that Russia is preparing to increase the brutality of its campaign against Russia.
We have seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weapons into Ukraine.
This includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs, which are prohibited by the Geneva Convention.”
A little further have gone the accusations of organizations such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, by assuring that the Russian Army has come to use cluster munitions;
or those of the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, stating the same about vacuum pumps.
What kind of weapons are we talking about?
Are they being used against the civilian population?
“Cluster munition” means a conventional munition that has been designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions.
In 2008, more than 100 countries signed the treaty against its manufacture and use, but Russia and Ukraine were not among them.
"If someone finally takes the case to the International Criminal Court, they would not be accused of illegal use of weapons, but rather of seeking damages in civilians," Brigadier General Esteban Verástegui explains in this video.
The soldier, retired in 2007, analyzes some images of the conflict that may give clues about the use of this type of weapon, such as the appearance of rocket tails in some parts of Ukraine.
He also dissects a video geolocated by different international verifiers in Klochkivska, northwest of Kharkov,
Regarding vacuum pumps, Verástegui says that it is a type of artifact with great potential for destruction.
At the moment, no image has been recorded that proves its use during the invasion, although some photos shared by media such as the American CNN point to the presence of rocket launchers capable of carrying this type of weapon.
You can find this and other data in the video that accompanies this information.
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