The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has said that the Ukrainian military have never used cluster munitions in the area of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in Donbas.
“The ATO forces have never used and do not use such weapons [cluster munitions],” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebyinis said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday, Oct. 21 while commenting on a statement by Human Rights Watch (HRW) that the Ukrainian military allegedly use cluster munitions.
Perebyinis said that these were the methods “used by terrorists and Russian-controlled illegal groups, including with a view to discrediting the ATO forces.”
He also noted that HRW findings had not been substantiated.
“Unfortunately, we have to state that in the case of a report released by HRW it is obvious that it was also the case of staging and use by representatives of illegal armed groups of such a respected organization in order to achieve their propaganda goals,” Perebyinis said.
He said that HRW had become a victim of fraud on the part of the militants.
Human Rights Watch said in a press release on Tuesday that facts were uncovered during a seven-day investigation suggesting that cluster ammunition was used extensively in the fighting between the Ukrainian forces and the militants in more than ten urban and rural locations.
