The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it would send Ukraine A small number of high-tech, medium-range rocket systems are a vital weapon that Ukrainian leaders are begging as they struggle to halt Russian progress in the Donbass region.
According to two senior administration officials, the rocket systems are part of a new $700 million tranche of security assistance for Ukraine, which will include helicopters, anti-tank weapons systems, tactical vehicles, spare parts and more.
Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the weapons package to be formally unveiled on Wednesday.
The US decision to provide advanced rocket systems seeks to strike a balance between wanting to help Ukraine fight off the brutal Russian artillery barrage, while not providing weapons that would allow Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia and war. may be allowed to trigger an increase in
In a guest essay published Tuesday evening in The New York Times, Biden confirmed that he “decided to provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will allow them to more precisely hit critical targets on the battlefield in Ukraine.” Will be able to strike.”
Biden said on Monday that the US would not send “rocket systems to attack Russia” to Ukraine.
Any weapon system can shoot down in Russia if it is close enough to the border. Officials said the aid package to be unveiled on Wednesday will see the US send medium-range rockets – they can typically travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers).
According to senior administration officials, Ukrainians have assured US officials that they will not launch rockets into Russian territory.
An official said the advanced rocket systems would give the Ukrainian military greater accuracy in targeting Russian assets inside Ukraine.
The hope is that Ukraine can use rockets in the eastern Donbass region, where they can both intercept Russian artillery and capture Russian positions in cities where fighting is intense, such as Svyarodonetsk.
Svyarodonetsk is vital to Russian efforts to capture the Donbass before more Western weapons arrive, to strengthen Ukraine’s defense.
The city, which is 90 miles (145 km) south of the Russian border, is in an area that is the last pocket under Ukrainian government control in the Luhansk region of the Donbass.
Biden said in his New York Times essay: “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war only to inflict pain on Russia.”
It is the 11th package approved so far, and will be the first to use $40 billion in security and economic aid recently passed by Congress.
The rocket systems would be part of the Pentagon drawdown authority, so it would involve taking weapons from US inventory and quickly bringing them to Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops will also need training on the new systems, which could take at least a week or two.
Officials said Ukraine plans to send the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, which is mounted on a truck and can carry a container with six rockets.
The system can launch a medium-range rocket, which is the current plan, but is also capable of firing a long-range missile, the Army Tactical Missile System, which has a range of about 190 mi (300 km) and is not part of Is. Why plan?
Since the war began in February, the US and its allies have tried to tread a narrow line: send weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia, but stop providing aid that would provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin and a broader could trigger conflict that could spread to other parts of Europe.
Over time, however, the US and allies have intensified arms moving to Ukraine, as the fighting shifted from Russia’s extensive campaign to the capital, Kyiv and other regions, to more close-knit pieces of land. for clashes. East and South.
To that end, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging the West to send multiple launch rocket systems to Ukraine as soon as possible to help prevent the destruction of cities in Russia’s Donbass.
The rockets have a longer range than the howitzer artillery systems provided by the US to Ukraine. They would allow Ukrainian forces to attack Russian troops from a distance outside the range of Russia’s artillery systems.
“We are fighting to provide Ukraine with all the weapons necessary to change the nature of the fighting and begin to move faster and more confidently toward the expulsion of the occupiers,” Zelensky said in a recent address.
Ukraine needs multiple launch rocket systems, said Philip Breedlov, a retired US Air Force general who was NATO’s top commander from 2013 to 2016.
“These are very important capabilities that we haven’t gotten yet. And they not only need them, but they’ve been very vocal in explaining that they want them,” Breedlov said.
“We need to get serious about supplying this army so that it can do what the world is asking it to do: fight the world superpower alone on the battlefield.”
US and White House officials did not make any public comment on the specifics of the aid package.
“We continue to consider a range of systems that have the potential to be effective on the battlefield for our Ukrainian partners. But the point that the President made is that we are in Ukraine for use beyond the battlefield. Will not send long-range rockets,” State Department Ned Price said Tuesday.
“As the fighting has shifted its dynamics, we have also shifted the type of security support that we are providing them, in large part because they have asked us for different systems which are more in places like Donbass. going to be effective.”
Russia is making incremental progress in the Donbass, as it tries to take over the remainder of the region not already controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
Putin has repeatedly warned the West against sending more shelling to Ukraine.
The Kremlin said Putin held an 80-minute telephone call with the leaders of France and Germany on Saturday in which he warned against continued transfers of Western weapons.
In total, the United States has pledged nearly $5 billion in security aid to Ukraine since the start of the Biden administration, including nearly $4.5 billion since Russia’s invasion on February 24.
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