It was a “difficult decision” to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions for the first time, said US President Joe Biden in a pre-recorded interview aired on Sunday.
“It took me a while to be convinced to do it,” Mr Biden said in a sit-down interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
The unexploded components of cluster bombs can kill and maim for decades after a conflict has ended. That is in part why they are banned by more than 120 countries, including US Nato allies, under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Russia, the US, Ukraine and dozens of other countries including the UAE and Saudi Arabia are not signatories.
“I discussed this with our allies, I discussed this with our friends … the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition,” Mr Biden added.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan echoed that sentiment when he announced the approval on Friday, saying Washington had “written assurances” from Kyiv that it “is going to use these in a very careful way that is aimed at minimising any risk to civilians”.
But at least one key ally in Washington's support of Ukraine, Germany, repeated its opposition to the weapons after the US announcement.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters at a climate conference in Vienna: "I have followed the media reports. For us, as a state party, the Oslo agreement applies."
The Democratic Biden administration's decision to send the controversial munitions was met with support from senior foreign policy Republicans in Washington.
House foreign affairs committee chairman Michael McCaul, Senate foreign relations committee ranking member Jim Risch and Senate armed services committee ranking member Roger Wicker released a joint statement calling the approval “long overdue”.
“[Ukrainians] want [cluster munitions] as self defence to use against Russians in their own country ... I don't see anything wrong with that,” Mr McCaul said in a CNN interview on Sunday.
“The counter-offensive, it's been slowed tremendously because this administration has been so slow to get these weapons and these [cluster munitions] will be a game-changer,” he added.
Russia’s war in Ukraine reached its 500th day on Saturday, as Kyiv's counter-offensive grinds on without yielding major results.
Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, told The National after the Friday announcement that Kyiv would use the cluster munitions “very responsibly, because it is our territory and our people”.
Ms Markarova added that “after the liberation of the territory where they were used, demining will be carried out immediately”.
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As the war in Ukraine approaches the 500-day mark, 'The National' looks back at the conflict. All photos: AP -
Ukrainian soldiers cover their ears to protect from Russian tank shelling in a shelter on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region in July -
A cemetery in evening sunlight near Lviv in July -
Flooded streets in Kherson in June after the walls of the Kakhovka dam collapsed -
Tetiana with her pets, Tsatsa and Chunya, in her house that was flooded when the Kakhovka dam in Kherson was breached -
Young cadets sing the national anthem during a graduation ceremony at a cadet lyceum in Kyiv in June -
Bakhmut in April, the site of the heaviest battles in the Donetsk region -
A message on a mirror reads 'Ukraine will prevail' in a badly damaged school in Kharkiv in February -
Ukrainian servicemen in position close to the border with Belarus in February -
Hospital staff in Kherson with orphaned children at the regional hospital maternity ward in November 2022 -
A sniper unit aims at Russian positions in the Kherson region during an operation in November 2022 -
Ukrainian artillerymen fire at Russian positions near Bakhmut in November 2022 -
A Ukrainian serviceman near Oskil village in October 2022 -
Funeral workers carry the coffin of an unidentified civilian who died in the Bucha community during the Russian occupation period in February-March 2022 -
Cadets practise with gas masks in a bomb shelter on the first day of school at a cadet lyceum in Kyiv, Ukraine, in September -
A young girl with her dog waves goodbye to her grandparents from an evacuation train leaving Pokrovsk in August 2022 -
A child looks up at a building destroyed during attacks in Irpin in May 2022 -
An elderly patient boards a medical evacuation train in Pokrovsk in May 2022 -
Nila Zelinska holds a doll belonging to her granddaughter that she found in her destroyed house in Potashnya, on the outskirts of Kyiv, in May 2022 -
Residents shelter in the city subway of Kharkiv in May 2022 -
Destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, April 2022 -
A family fleeing the village of Ruska Lozova in April 2022 arrive in their shrapnel-riddled car at a screening point in Kharkiv -
Smoke fills the air after shelling in Odesa in April -
Yehor, 7, with a wooden toy rifle next to destroyed Russian military vehicles near Chernihiv in April 2022 -
Security Service of Ukraine servicemen enter a building during an operation to arrest suspected Russian collaborators in Kharkiv in April 2022 -
A Ukrainian soldier during a pick-up game of football in Irpin in April 2022 -
The partially abandoned town of Chernobyl in April 2022 -
Ruslan Mishanin, 36, bids farewell to his nine-year-old daughter as the train with his family leaves Odesa for Poland in April -
Halyna Falko, 52, talks to reporters in March 2022 while looking at the destruction caused to her house near Brovary after a Russian attack -
Anti-tank barricades on a street in preparation for a possible Russian offensive in Odesa in March 2022 -
A man recovering items from a burning shop after a Russian attack in Kharkiv in March 2022 -
Ukrainians under a destroyed bridge as they as they cross the Irpin river on the outskirts of Kyiv in March 2022
