Ukraine needs dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, General Petraeus believes

The United States has provided nearly $38 billion worth of defense assistance to Ukraine so far to repel Russian aggression while some decisions on supplying certain types of weapons might take longer to make than Kyiv expects, including on DPICM.

That’s according to General (Ret.) David Petraeus, who commanded the U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and headed the Central Intelligence Agency, Ukrinform reports.

Speaking at the American University Kyiv, Petraeus said: “Whatever you might say about… ‘gosh, it was a little slow to make the M1 tank decision, or make the western aircraft decision, or make now the army tactical missile system, the ATACMS (decision – ed.), to double the range of what we’re currently providing for the multiple rocket launch systems, or dual-purpose improved conventional munition’ (DPICM – ed.) – your president (of the American University Kyiv Dan Rice, former special advisor to Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi - ed.) is a huge champion of that – and I’m persuaded at this point now as well, don’t overlook $38 billion – this is staggering,” said General Petraeus.

In February 2023, in an interview with Ukrinform, Dan Rice, the-then special advisor to Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said DPICM was designed specifically to fight against superior numbers of, specifically, Russian artillery on the European battlefield.

“It is the moral imperative for the West to provide DPICM rather than the much less effective High Explosive rounds that are currently being provided,” he said, adding that the Cluster Munitions Convention was authored by “a well-intended, but naïve group of Western leaders who only handicapped the 50-year-old planned defense of Europe against a superior Russian invading artillery force.”

“And Ukraine is paying the price for the West’s naivety,” Dan Rice stressed.

The weapon at issue is the M483 Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM), an artillery round for the 155mm howitzers supplied to Ukraine by the U.S., as per Forbes.

Each round scatters 88 powerful grenades; the ‘Dual-Purpose’ part of the name refers to the fact that as well as spraying lethal shrapnel to cut down footsoldiers, the grenade also has an armor-piercing shaped charge capable of damaging vehicles.

“DPICM ammunition is typically 5-15 times more effective per round than the older high explosive artillery rounds the U.S. is currently providing to Ukraine," Dan Rice wrote in Small Wars Journal last September.