THE use of cluster munitions in Ukraine will lead to the crumbling of international support for the war, according to Commons Defence Select Committee member Tobias Ellwood.

He told GB News: “My concern is if that we start to use custom munitions, which don’t just kill people on the battlefield today, but they loiter around for often many, many years later, affecting civilians, we will lose that moral high ground.

“And that could easily see this international coalition of support for Ukraine start to crumble away, because many people will be deeply concerned that we’re using munitions which have been outlawed.

“There are conventions against this, and I really don’t think it’s the direction we should be going. I hope that we’ll reconsider and find other ways of providing the necessary support to Ukraine.”

In a discussion with Angela Rippon, he continued: “Ukraine has done a phenomenal job in holding back the third largest army in the world. But to move from defence to offence requires a whole range of equipment which they currently don’t have enough of.

“It is imperative the West gives them the F-16s, the tanks and the long range missiles. America has not provided the equivalent of Storm Shadow, which Britain has provided.

“That could be a much better alternative than actually flooding the country with cluster weapons which have a habit of lying on the battlefield long after the war is over, often killing many civilians, indeed children, because they’re the ones that wander around into the countryside and bump into these things.

“We’ve seen that in Africa. We’ve seen that in other war-torn parts of the world. I strongly recommend that we do not use cluster munitions.”