WASHINGTON: The United States will send four more high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday (Jul 20), in the latest military package to help it defend itself against Russian forces.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu earlier this week ordered generals to prioritise destroying Ukraine’s long-range missiles and artillery after Western-supplied weapons were used to strike Russian supply lines.
Nearly five months since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion, Russian forces are grinding through the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and occupy around a fifth of the country.
“(We) will keep finding innovative ways to sustain our long-term support for the brave men and women of the Ukrainian armed forces and we will tailor our assistance to ensure that Ukraine has the technology, the ammunition and the sheer firepower to defend itself,” Austin said at the start of a virtual meeting with allies on Ukraine.
The West has supplied Ukraine with longer-range heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems so it can hold out despite Russian artillery supremacy in numbers and ammunition.
Ukraine says it has carried out successful strikes on 30 Russian logistics and ammunition hubs, using several multiple launch rocket systems recently supplied by the West.
In a press conference after the meeting, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said Ukraine had used HIMARS to hit Russian command and control nodes, logistic network and air defence sites within Ukraine.
About 200 Ukrainian forces had been trained on the HIMARS and none of the systems had been destroyed by Russian forces, Milley said.
He added an issue would be the rate of ammunition being used by Ukrainian forces, though there would be no impact on the readiness of the United States in the next couple of months at the current rate.
Milley said the Donbas region had not been lost by Ukrainians yet and described it as a “grinding war of attrition”.
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