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Washington (CNN) --
Ukrainian officials and lawmakers have in recent months urged the Joe Biden administration and members of Congress to provide the Ukrainian military with cluster bomb warheads, weapons banned by more than 100 countries but still used by Russia to effect. devastating inside Ukraine.
The Ukrainian request for cluster bombs, described to CNN by several US and Ukrainian officials, is one of the most controversial Ukrainians have made to the United States since the war began in February.
Senior officials in the Biden administration have been studying this request for months and have not rejected it outright, CNN learned, a detail that had not been previously reported.
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Cluster bombs are imprecise by design, spreading "bomblets" over wide areas that may not explode on impact and pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines.
They also cause "nasty, bloody fragmentation" to anyone hit by them, due to dozens of submunitions detonating at once over a wide area, Mark Hiznay, a weapons expert and associate director of weapons at Human Rights Watch.
Senior US officials have publicly stated that they intend to give the Ukrainians all the support they need to give them the upper hand at the negotiating table with Russia, should the case come to pass.
But Western military equipment is not infinite, and as nuclear warhead stocks dwindle, the Ukrainians have made it clear to the United States that they could use the cluster munitions currently gathering dust in stores.
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For Ukraine, cluster bombs could solve two major problems: the need for more ammunition for artillery and rocket systems that the US and other countries have provided, and a way to reduce Russia's numerical superiority in artillery.
The Biden administration has not ruled out this option as a last resort, in case reserves start to run dangerously low.
However, some sources say the proposal has not yet been widely considered, largely due to legal restrictions that Congress has placed on the US's ability to transfer cluster bombs.
These restrictions apply to munitions with an unexploded ordnance rate greater than one percent, which increases the possibility that they pose a risk to the civilian population.
President Joe Biden could lift that restriction, but the administration has told Ukrainians that is unlikely any time soon.
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"Ukraine's ability to move forward in the current and future phases of the conflict is not dependent on or in any way linked to the acquisition of such munitions," a congressional adviser told CNN.
Both the Ukrainians and the Russians have used cluster bombs since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, but the Russians—who also used the munitions to devastating effect on civilians in Syria—have used them more frequently and against civilian targets, including parks, clinics and a cultural center, according to research by Human Rights Watch.
Russia's use of these munitions — including its Smerch 300mm cluster rockets that can launch 72 submunitions in an area the size of a football field — has been documented in dozens of Ukrainian regions, including Kharkiv, as reported. CNN.
Asked about the negative perception of the use of cluster munitions, a Ukrainian official quickly replied that they would only respond in kind.
"So what if the Russians use cluster munitions against us?" a Ukrainian official told CNN.
"[The US's] concern is collateral damage. We are going to use it against Russian troops, not against the Russian population."
CNN separately contacted the Office of the President of Ukraine and the Defense Ministry.
The President's Office referred CNN to the Defense Ministry.
The Defense Ministry told CNN that it does not comment on reports regarding requests for specific weapons systems or ammunition, preferring to wait for an agreement to be reached with a supplier before making any public announcements.
The US is not a signatory to the 2010 ban, known as the Cluster Bomb Convention, and maintains large warehouses of these munitions.
But administration officials believe that, in addition to congressional limitations, there are too many drawbacks to the use of cluster munitions — the biggest being the risk they pose to civilians — to justify transferring them unless absolutely necessary.
And for now, the United States does not believe that munitions are essential to Ukraine's success on the battlefield.
Ukrainian officials, however, maintain that the Russians are using cluster bombs extensively, and largely in civilian areas.
For that reason, the Ukrainians have approached the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress "many times" to lobby for the munitions, known as dual-use enhanced conventional munitions, multiple sources familiar with the effort told CNN. depression.
Ukrainian serviceman Igor Ovcharruck holds a defused cluster bomb from an MSLR missile in Kharkiv region, Ukraine.
Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko is one of the officials who has been pressing the United States to provide the bombs.
"It's extremely important, first of all because it will really change the situation on the battlefield," he told CNN.
"With them, Ukraine will end this war much faster, to the benefit of all."
"Russia is extensively using the old styles, the most barbaric styles, of cluster bombs against Ukraine," Goncharenko added.
"Personally, I was a victim of this. I was under this bombardment. So we have every right to use it against them."
The first Ukrainian official and another source familiar with the requests said the Ukrainians want cluster bombs compatible with both US-provided HIMARS rocket launchers and 155mm howitzers, and have argued that the munitions would allow Ukrainian troops to attack with more effectively larger and more scattered targets, such as concentrations of Russian soldiers and vehicles.
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Neither the United States nor Ukraine are signatories to the Cluster Bomb Convention, which prohibits the use, production, and stockpiling of cluster bombs due to the potential risk to non-combatants.
But the United States began removing them in 2016 because they "contained hundreds of smaller 'cluster bomb' explosives that were often left unexploded on the battlefield, posing a danger to civilians," according to a 2017 statement from the Central command.
The United States replaced dual-use improved conventional munitions, known as DPICMs, with the M30A1 alternate warhead.
The M30A1 contains 180,000 small tungsten steel fragments that scatter on impact and leave no unexploded munitions on the ground.
However, Ukrainian officials claim that the DPICMs the US now has in stock could greatly help the Ukrainian army on the battlefield, more so than the M30A1s.
"Those [DPICMs] are more effective when you have a concentration of Russian forces," the Ukrainian official told CNN, noting that Ukraine has been asking for the weapons "for many months."
"The Russians use all these cluster munitions, they don't care," the official said.
"We are going to fight against the Russian troops, but the Russians fight with our civilians with clusters."
CNN's Oren Liebermann and Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.
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