Dual-purpose improved conventional munition

A dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) is an artillery or surface-to-surface missile warhead designed to burst into submunitions at an optimum altitude and distance from the desired target for dense area coverage.

After a careful "soft touch" disassembly fully intact[4] D563 shell casings from M483-series 155-mm projectiles[5] were being refilled with explosives, recycling them for use as inexpensive training ammunition.

The AWP warheads have an equal or greater effect against materiel and personnel targets, while leaving no unexploded ordnance behind.

Kahl also claimed that DPICMs can “scatter over a wide[r] area” than standard rounds, including Russian defences such as trenches.

[13][14] On 10 July, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) published an article supporting the supply of cluster munitions to Ukraine, arguing that a United States Army study of the Vietnam War had found that while it took approximately 13.6 high explosive shells for each enemy soldier killed.

RUSI used an example of a trench, a direct hit by a high explosive round will spread shrapnel "within line of sight of the point of detonation".

[17] During the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War, objections have been raised by some NATO members which had signed the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, including Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Several other NATO member states, including Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Turkey, are also not signatories of this agreement, nor is Russia.

The two videos appear to show the remaining Russian forces in the town retreating under fire, as the Ukrainians deploy DPICMs in their path.

Forbes writer David Axe has described the resulting scene as "murder" and a "bloodbath", given that Ukrainian artillery spotters were afforded an unobstructed view of the Russian retreat in the clear light of day, and the retreating Russian infantrymen were completely unsupported by tanks or other vehicles.