Vindman on cluster munitions: ‘From a practical standpoint, the president did the right thing’

Retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman said on Saturday that President Biden “did the right thing” in agreeing to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.

“From a practical standpoint, the president did the right thing,” Vindman told CNN, adding, “Ukraine is going to be very mindful.”

“They’re going to take responsibility for their territory,” he continued. “It’s being deployed on their territory. They’re’ going to be careful with them.”

The Biden administration announced the decision to provide Kyiv with cluster munitions as part of an $800 million military aid package on Friday.

Cluster munitions, which are designed to spread out a few dozen to hundreds of submunitions over a wide area, are banned by more than 100 countries due to the risk that the bombs can fail to detonate and remain an explosive hazard for civilians.

Vindman acknowledged that Biden is facing pushback over the decision and noted that the president would likely “take a bit of heat” from some NATO members who “have the leisure to take these kind of principled approaches,” as he heads to the NATO summit next week.

However, the retired Army lieutenant colonel said that Ukrainian officials see the cluster munitions as “essential to being able to liberate territory and destroy the Russian army.” 

“This is all about being able to attack the Russian army at its heart, break its ability to continue to wage war in Ukraine, and with that, help usher in the conclusion of the war,” Vindman said.

“In a lot of ways, it seems counterintuitive, but it’s frankly one of the most humane things that they could do,” he continued. “Instead of having this war run indefinitely, having a sharp punctuated conclusion to this war is a pretty humane approach.”

Vindman, who has pushed for Ukraine’s admission into NATO, also suggested that Russia believes it can block the effort to bring Kyiv into the alliance by dragging out the war, which hit its 500th day on Saturday.

“Russia believes that, as long as this war is continuing on, it maintains a veto over Ukraine’s NATO membership,” he told CNN. “So that means that we’re setting up a recipe for Russia to continue to interfere, continue to wage war in Ukraine, in an effort to block accession.”