Ukraine said it needs 60 multiple-launch rocket systems to have a fighting chance against Russia, indicating that the number of such weapons pledged by the West so far may not be enough.
Kyiv asks for more rocket systems as Kremlin warns of potential strikes in Russia
The United States and Britain recently announced plans to provide Kyiv with MLRS weapons, which can hit targets up to 50 miles away. Washington is dispatching four M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, commonly known as HIMARS, though Ukrainian troops need at least three weeks of training to use them, the Pentagon said. Britain confirmed Monday that it would send an unspecified number of M270 launch systems to Ukraine.
The Kremlin has warned against equipping Kyiv with the weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin over the weekend threatened a wider campaign of shelling in response, even as he dismissed their efficacy. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov alleged that Ukraine would use the systems to strike targets inside Russia, though the Biden administration has said Kyiv agreed to use the weapons only within its territory. (London has not said if it received a similar commitment from Kyiv, though its shipment was made in consultation with Washington.)
Ukrainian leaders “simply laugh at the Americans who said, ‘we believe Zelensky, he promised us not to shoot Russia,’” Lavrov told reporters Monday.
Kyiv has called MLRS shipments a top priority as it slowly loses ground in eastern Ukraine. Earlier in the war, Ukraine successfully repelled Russian forces trying to seize the capital and other major cities. But Moscow has notched some recent victories in the flat lands of the east with the support of its long-range artillery systems, with pummeled Severodonetsk becoming the latest city in danger of falling to Russia.
Ukraine has used Western-supplied equipment to great effect. Kyiv claimed several high-profile battlefield victories against Russian tanks and ships with its use of materiel such as Javelin missiles and British Next Generation Light Antitank Weapons. Ukraine’s navy said this week that it had pushed Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships to some 60 miles from the Ukrainian coast. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said anti-ship missiles provided by the West could have helped Kyiv regain control of portions of the northwestern Black Sea.
“The war in the east at the moment is being shaped by the role of artillery,” said Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army major general, adding that 60 MLRS weapons would allow Kyiv to replace potential combat losses while simultaneously conducting training.
The roughly 50-mile range of the U.K.- and U.S.-supplied MLRS weapons exceeds those of the howitzers Russia is using and would give Ukraine a “much wider area of coverage for short-notice fire missions,” he said.
Source: WP
