Live Updates: Russia Restarts Gas Flow to Germany; Ukraine Targets Russian Positions Across South
As Russia’s foreign minister made clear that Moscow’s territorial ambitions extend beyond eastern Ukraine, the United States on Wednesday said it would send four more advanced multi-role missile launchers to Ukraine.
Missile launchers, which can deliver medics comparable to the devastating impact of an air strike from a jet armed with precision-guided bombs, are part of a new range of long-range weapons. which the United States is supplying to the Ukrainian military. They underscored Washington’s determination to help counter Russia’s military might and President Vladimir Putin’s goal of conquering Ukraine, a sovereign nation.
But with Russia until recently making steady but incremental gains on the battlefield, and with Ukraine’s Western allies struggling to keep up with Ukraine’s seemingly insatiable appetite for weapons. , Ukraine faces an uphill struggle for parity on the battlefield. And there are disagreements between Ukrainian and American officials about what should happen.
In an interview with reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said four more advanced multiple rocket launchers would bring the total US supply to 16.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, said in June that Ukraine needed 300 multiple launch missile systems and 500 tanks, among other things, to better compete with the forces Russia Realizable. That number is many times more than what Ukraine was promised.
Michael G. Vickers, the former top Pentagon civilian official on counterinsurgency strategy, said this month that Ukraine needs at least 60 people, and perhaps as many as 100, HIMARS or other multiple launch missile systemsto win the artillery battle.
Also looming over arms transfers is the question of how long America’s resolve will last amid soaring gasoline prices and the growing need for national sacrifice in Europe and the United States. The Biden administration has also been hesitant to provide weapons that could reach Russian territory and potentially trigger a larger-scale war.
The dozens of M142 HIMARS — an acronym for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — delivered from Pentagon stockpiles have made a difference on the battlefield, Austin said. Ukrainian soldiers used them to destroy Russian command and control centers and ammunition depots. Each M142 HIMARS truck carries six guided missiles loaded with 200 pounds of high explosive that can hit targets 50 miles away.
“That affects the tempo of the game, and is likely to create some chances here,” said Austin. “There is still a lot of work to be done – HIMARS alone will not change, win or lose in a war.”
Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said this week the Ukrainian military needs at least 100 US launchers for them to “become a game changer on the battlefield”. He said that HIMARS and other rocket launchers that had been shipped to Ukraine helped destroy about 30 Russian command posts and ammunition storage units.
Reznikov said in an online interview Tuesday with the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. “So it’s working.”
As debate continues in the West about what is needed to contain Russian forces, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine now extend beyond Western territory. east of the country, a departure from the Kremlin’s earlier statement. did not wage a war of imperial expansion.
As Ukraine ramps up attacks on Russian forces in southern Ukraine to the extent possible opening to a large scale Lavrov said that Moscow is also keeping an eye on the Kherson and Zaporizka regions in southern Ukraine, which are occupied by Russian forces, as well as “several other territories”.
Eric Schmitt contribution report.
