CLUSTER BOMBS AND THERMOBARIC WEAPONS

CLUSTER BOMBS AND THERMOBARIC WEAPONS

Human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Russia of using cluster bombs and vacuum bombs in the ongoing war.

Cluster munitions

• According to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, a cluster munition means a “conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions”.
  
  
• Essentially, cluster munitions are non-precision weapons that are designed to injure or kill human beings indiscriminately over a large area, and to destroy vehicles and infrastructure such as runways, railway or power transmission lines.
  
  
• They can be dropped from an aircraft or launched in a projectile that spins in flight, scattering many bomblets as it travels.
  
  
• Countries that have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions are prohibited from using cluster bombs.
  
  

Thermobaric weapon

• Thermobaric weapons — also known as aerosol bombs, fuel air explosives, or vaccum bombs — use oxygen from the air for a large, high-temperature blast. A thermobaric weapon causes significantly greater devastation than a conventional bomb of comparable size.
  
  
• Vacuum bombs are not prohibited by any international law or agreement, but their use against civilian populations in built-up areas, schools or hospitals, could attract action under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.