Biden says US to send Ukraine 'advanced rocket systems' to hit 'key targets'
WASHINGTON, United States — President Joe Biden on Tuesday confirmed the United States will send more advanced rocket systems to Ukraine with ability to strike what he called "key targets" of Russia's invasion force.
"We will provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine," Biden wrote in The New York Times.
A US official told reporters that the weapons being sent are Himars, or the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.
With precision-guided munitions and a longer range than weapons currently deployed by Ukraine, the multiple rocket launchers represent an important upgrade at a time when the Ukrainians are battling Russian artillery in the east of the country.
The Himars rockets "will enable the Ukrainians to more precisely strike targets on the battlefield from greater distance inside Ukraine and to help them repel Russia," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"These systems will be used by the Ukrainians to repel Russian advances on Ukrainian territory but they will not be used against Russia."
The Himars are the centerpiece of a $700 million package being unveiled Wednesday, also including air surveillance radars, more Javelin short-range anti-tank rockets, more artillery ammunition, helicopters, vehicles and spare parts, the official said.
Although there'd been speculation for days that Himars were going — following repeated pleas from Ukraine's outgunned military — the announcement also made clear the US attempt to help Kyiv's war effort while not being seen as a direct belligerent.
For that reason, the ammunition for the Himars will not include a version able to reach some 186 miles (300 kilometers), out of fear that the Ukrainians would use it to hit deep inside Russia.
They will instead get the version extending about 50 miles (80 km), which is still significantly further than the Ukrainians' present capabilities, the US official said. That means Ukraine's forces will be able to strike at Russian positions with the rockets from relative safety.
The "Ukrainians have given assurances they will not use these systems against Russian territory," the official stressed.
The new weaponry will come from a recently approved fund of $40 billion. Already the Biden administration has sent $4.5 billion in mostly military aid to Ukraine since the war began with Russia's February invasion.
Asked what the United States considers the war aim for Ukraine, the official said it was to put Kyiv "in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table."
While the United States does not want to "prolong the war," it considers it vital that Russia "pay a heavy price for its actions" or it will "send a message to other would-be aggressors that they can take a territory by force," the official said.
"We will not pressure the Ukrainian government in private or in public to make any territorial concessions," the official said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday secured Turkey's crucial backing for Ukraine's NATO aspirations after winning a US pledge for cluster munitions that could inflict massive damage on Russian forces on the battlefield.
Washington's decision to deliver the controversial weapons — banned across a large part of the world but not in Russia or Ukraine — dramatically ups the stakes in the war, which entered its 500th day Saturday.
Zelensky has been travelling across Europe trying to secure bigger and better weapons for his outmatched army, which has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive that is progressing less swiftly than Ukraine's allies had hoped. — AFP
Washington's decision to supply Ukraine with ATACMS long-range missiles is "a grave mistake", Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov says Wednesday.
"The White House's decision to send long-range missiles to Ukrainians is a grave mistake. The consequences of this step, which was deliberately hidden from the public, will be of the most serious nature," he says in a statement. — AFP
President Vladimir Putin says Sunday that Russian forces had made gains in their Ukraine offensive including in Avdiivka, a symbolic industrial hub.
"Our troops are improving their position in almost all of this area, which is quite vast," he says in an interview on Russian television, an extract of which was posted on social media on Sunday. "This concerns the areas of Kupiansk, Zaporizhia and Avdiivka." — AFP
The regional governor says debris from a drone destroyed over the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, fell on homes and killed three people, including a young child.
The air defense system "shot down an aircraft-type UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) approaching the city", says Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, adding that the falling debris destroyed several homes.
"Most importantly, three people were killed, one of them a small child," he writes on the Telegram messaging app, accompanied by pictures of a house reduced to a pile of rubble behind red and white police tape. — AFP
Ukraine's air force says on Tuesday that it had destroyed 27 of 36 Russian attack drones overnight in the south of the country.
Ukrainian forces downed 27 "Shahed-136/131" drones in the southern Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, the air force said on the messaging platform Telegram.
In all, Moscow had launched 36 of the Iranian-made drones from the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, it says. — AFP
The Kremlin claims on Friday Russian forces never targeted civilian infrastructure after Ukraine blamed Moscow for a missile attack that killed over 50 people in the eastern village of Groza.
"We repeat that the Russian military does not strike civilian targets. Strikes are carried out on military targets, on places where military personnel are concentrated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says in his daily briefing. — AFP
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