'Dangerous Improvisation' of Ukrainian Troops With Cluster Shells - Reports

The Ukrainian soldiers are sawing up Western cluster munitions, extracting defeat elements from them and using them as shells for drones, an American news website columnist Joseph Trevithick reported.

"Ukrainians are disassembling some of the recently obtained US cluster munitions in order to convert the defeat elements into improvised projectiles that can be dropped from small drones," wrote the author.

This is evidenced by a video that appeared on the web. It is believed that the footage was filmed by the Ukrainian unit Achilles, which specialises in working with drones.

The journalist noted that cutting the warhead of the shell with a bolt cutter raises "safety concerns". He said the process of disassembling the projectile by hand on the ground could cause enormous damage. He added that the DPICM fuzes shown in the video are extremely "finicky" and can easily detonate if mishandled.

Ukraine has received cluster munitions from the US as part of another package of military supplies. Their use is banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions that 123 countries have ratified, but the US and Ukraine are not among them.

When exploding, cluster bombs eject smaller munitions, some of which fail to detonate for technical reasons, thus leaving civilians in danger: unexploded shells become mines that can kill or maim people long after the fighting is over.