Russia's invasion has turned Ukraine into the country with the highest cluster munition casualties in the world, even more than Syria

• Ukraine topped the list of countries in terms of cluster munition victims, a new report said.
• The Cluster Munition Coalition said cluster bombs killed or injured 900 people in Ukraine in 2022.

Ukraine suffered the highest number of cluster munition casualties in the world in 2022, overtaking Syria, according to a new report.

The Cluster Munition Coalition, a global civil society campaign advocating for the ban of cluster munitions, said Russia's war in Ukraine had pushed the use of the ammunition to global record levels since it began reporting in 2010.

According to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, cluster munitions killed more than 300 people and wounded over 600 in Ukraine in 2022, bringing the number of casualties to at least 1,172 across eight war-torn countries, which also included Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

The report mentioned Russia's repeated use of the weapons, as well as Ukraine's lesser use of them, but failed to give specifics on the impact of their respective use.

Syria, which topped the list each year since 2012, came in second, with a recorded 15 people killed and 75 wounded by cluster munitions in 2022, according to the report.

The CMC reported an "alarming" rise in civilian deaths related to cluster munition attacks, which accounted for 95% of casualties. Children made up the bulk of victims worldwide, the report said.

Tamar Gabelnick, director of the CMC, called for an immediate ban on the weapons.

"All countries that have not banned these weapons must do so immediately. There can be no excuse for their continued use," she said.

The Ukrainian army received 155 mm artillery shells known as dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs) — commonly known as cluster munitions – from the US earlier this year, in a move some criticized.

Cluster munitions can be dropped from the air or fired as artillery and deal damage over a larger area, dispersing tiny explosives known as submunitions or bomblets.

The UN said cluster munition poses a potential humanitarian risk because many submunitions are unreliable and fail to explode — leaving active ordinance long after conflicts end.

Russia has been criticized for employing cluster bombs and for using them in heavily populated civilian areas.

Ukraine has said it is only using cluster bombs against military targets.

Cluster munition is proving to be more lethal and effective than conventional munitions in Ukraine, George Barros, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, previously told Insider.

But no weapon system is a "silver bullet," he said, insisting that Ukraine needs to increase combat power and use various weapon systems to win the war.