Category: Ukraine War

NBC News

The U.S. is sending Ukraine advanced rocket systems. Here’s why that artillery is so crucial.

Patrick Galey and Erin McLaughlin and Dan De Luce – June 1, 2022

Russia is advancing in the east behind a barrage of artillery that has strained Ukrainian defenses and Western unity over support for a protracted war.

The United States’ much-anticipated decision to send Kyiv long-range missile systems that will allow its forces to fire farther and faster has likely come too late to save two key cities in the Donbas region that has become the focal point of the fighting.

But delivery of the weapons after months of urging from Ukrainian officials will help the country’s military face the next, potentially decisive stage of the conflict — as the Kremlin perhaps hinted at in response, accusing the U.S. of “deliberately pouring oil on the fire.”

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the U.S. would be sending Ukraine the high mobility artillery rocket system, or HIMARS. “This new package will arm them with new capabilities and advanced weaponry, including HIMARS with battlefield munitions, to defend their territory from Russian advances,” he said in a statement.

The HIMARS is a variant of the longer-range multiple-launch rocket system, or MLRS. The U.S. is sending four of the rocket launch systems to Ukraine.

A senior Ukrainian official told NBC News after the announcement that he remained “very much worried… particularly since they have committed only a small battery of MLRSs, meaning they yet won’t make a large difference.”

MLRS missiles typically have a range of up to 40 miles, and can be equipped with GPS-guided missiles. This would be a significant upgrade of the Ukrainian artillery’s current range, which tops out at around 20 miles with the M777 howitzers its allies have so far provided.

The systems have the added benefit of being self-propelled, meaning they can be fired and moved fast enough to avoid enemy response salvos.

Phil Wasielewski, a fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the systems would aid Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, where the battle has “turned into an artillery duel.”

He said that combined with their targeting capacity aided by commercial drones and counter battery radars, the systems would provide a “distinct qualitative and quantitative improvement” to Ukraine’s combat capability.

“These rocket artillery systems can destroy Russian cannon artillery systems and not be touched by them.”

Ukraine’s allies are slowly stepping up their exports of heavy weaponry, with Germany promising Wednesday to supply Ukraine with modern anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems.

However they are unlikely to arrive in time to save swaths of the country’s east from being battered and overrun.

The Russian assault in Ukraine’s industrial heartland has edged toward capturing two key cities, with the mayor of Sievierodonetsk — one of the last urban areas under Ukrainian control in Luhansk province and a key target of the Kremlin’s Donbas offensive — saying Wednesday that Russian forces now control around 80 percent of the ruined city.

Lacking long-range missile capability, Ukrainian forces are experiencing heavy losses, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that up to 100 soldiers could be dying in battle each day in the east.

“The combination of artillery barrage, airstrikes and missile strikes is what we expected from Russia from the beginning of the war and they are grinding the Ukrainians down,” said William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In comments earlier this week, he said that if Ukrainian forces had the MLRS during Russia’s advance, they would have had a “better chance of breaking up Russian advances with little risk of destruction.”

Speaking before the announcements from Washington and Berlin, the senior Ukrainian official said his country had long been communicating to the U.S. and its allies what it needed to win the war.

“This is about long-range firearms, howitzers, MLRS, air defense,” the official told NBC News.

“This is an active artillery war. A war in which you need long-range firepower,” the official said. “This war is about shooting and moving. Who can shoot the longest and fastest wins.”

Dating back to before the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian government and its supporters in Congress have appealed to the Biden administration repeatedly for certain weapons, and the White House initially declined or it has taken weeks or months before approving the delivery of items such as anti-aircraft Stinger missiles and drones.

U.S. officials have grappled for weeks over sending the MLRS to eastern Ukraine, largely due to the systems’ extended ranges, which could potentially allow Ukrainian forces to fire directly into Russian territory.

Biden on Monday told reporters that the U.S. would not “send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia.” A senior administration official said Ukraine has agreed not to use them to launch rockets into Russia.

Echoing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s comments, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned Wednesday that any arms supplies “increase the risks of a direct collision between Russia and the United States,” according to the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency.

Moscow’s messaging over the long-range weapons systems showed it “knows exactly how to play on the West’s doubts and fear of a direct NATO-Russia confrontation,” said Michael A. Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst who is the head of intelligence at the consultancy Le Beck International.

He said that it wasn’t too late for the weapons to help Ukrainian forces defend positions and stanch further Russian advances in the Donbas.

“But each day the West hesitates is a day Russian artillery rules the battlefield. Russian advances are preceded by massive fire. Each city lost by Ukraine is a city leveled to the ground, making each retreat even more painful,” Horowitz said.

Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said another Western concern was overloading Ukrainian forces with myriad new weapons systems, all of which require time for soldiers to be trained to use and maintain.

“The West has already given them artillery, armored personnel carriers, anti-artillery radars,” he said.

“If the Ukrainians had two years to absorb all this, that would be no problem. But they’re doing this in real time. We’re asking the Ukrainians to do in a couple of weeks what it would take us several months to do.”

A defense official said Tuesday that the Defense Department believes it can get the training for Ukrainian troops down to a week or two for basic operations and that there will be longer training courses for maintenance of the system.

Business Insider

Hundreds of Russian soldiers have deserted or refused to fight in Ukraine, compounding major losses in the war, report says

Kelsey Vlamis – June 1, 2022

• Russian troops have suffered major losses since invading Ukraine in February.
• Hundred of soldiers have also refused to fight, according to military documents obtained by the WSJ.
• Reports have also emerged of low morale among Russian troops in Ukraine.

Hundreds of Russian soldiers have refused to fight or fled their posts since the war in Ukraine began, according to report published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.

“So many people don’t want to fight,” Russian lawyer Mikhail Benyash told the outlet. Benyash is representing a dozen service members of Russia’s National Guard, which typically stamps out protests in Russia, who were dismissed after refusing to take part in the invasion of Ukraine.

The Guardian reported last week that at least 115 Russian national guardsmen said they were fired for refusing to fight. The lawsuit they brought challenging their dismissals was rejected by a Russian court when the judge found their firings justified for “refusing to perform an official assignment.”

Benyash told The Journal soldiers who refuse to fight have been dismissed but not criminally charged because Russia has not formally declared war against Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has instead described the invasion as a “special military operation.”

Benyash also said he received requests for legal help from more than 1,000 service members and employees of the Russian agency that oversees domestic policing. He said many had either refused to fight in Ukraine or quell protests in occupied towns.

Agora, a Russian human rights group, also told The Journal upwards of 700 Russian service members contacted the group for legal assistance in relation to refusing orders.

The desertions and refusals to fight have compounded the heavy losses Russian troops have experienced in Ukraine and a shortage of boots on the ground. The UK’s defense ministry said last month Russia had likely lost one-third of its its invading ground combat forces in Ukraine since February.

Reports have also emerged of low morale among Russian troops, including going to desperate lengths to get sent home from the war. One Russian soldier said his commander shot himself in the leg just so he could leave, according to intercepted audio published by Ukraine officials.

Business Insider

A Russian soldier who didn’t want to fight in Ukraine and went into hiding after fleeing his post says ‘none of us wanted this war’

Kelsey Vlamis – June 1, 2022

• Hundreds of Russian soldiers have deserted or refused to fight the war in Ukraine, The WSJ reported.
• One soldier said he fled his base the morning of the invasion and went into hiding.
• Russian ground forces have also experienced heavy losses in Ukraine.

A Russian soldier who went into hiding to avoid the war in Ukraine said most soldiers, like him, didn’t want to go.

“None of us wanted this war,” Albert Sakhibgareev told The Wall Street Journal.

The 24-year-old was stationed at a military base in Russia near the border with Ukraine in February. On the morning of February 24, the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion, shelling landed within two miles from his location and military aircraft in the sky appeared to be heading to Ukraine, The Journal reported. When Sakhibgareev saw a headline on Telegram that said “Russia Invades Ukraine” he panicked and left the base.

He’s one of hundreds of Russian soldiers who have deserted or refused to fight since the war in Ukraine began, according to the report published by The Journal on Wednesday. At least 115 Russian national guardsmen said they were fired after refusing to fight, according to The Guardian.

The unwillingness to fight has been compounded by the heavy losses Russian troops have experienced in Ukraine. The UK’s defense ministry said last month Russia had likely lost one-third of its ground combat forces in Ukraine since the invasion began.

After months of setbacks, including getting pushed out of Kyiv and Kharkiv, Russian forces have made recent gains in the Donbas region after shifting their focus to eastern Ukraine. Analysts told Insider’s Bill Bostock the advances for Russia marked a reversal from earlier stages of the war, but that the momentum may not last long.

Sakhibgareev was eventually contacted by Russian military officials, who convinced him to come back but allowed him to instead go to a base that was further from battle, The Journal reported. Sakhibgareev’s lawyer, Almaz Nabiev, told the outlet the military could still decide to press charges against him for desertion.

Reports of low morale among Russian soldiers have also emerged throughout the war. One Russian soldier said his commander shot himself in the leg just so he could go home, according to intercepted audio released by Ukrainian officials.

Reuters

Ukraine’s Muslim Crimea battalion yearns for lost homeland

Max Hunder June 1, 2022

YASNOHORODKA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Standing amid the charred remains of a roadside hotel on a major highway near Kyiv, Isa Akayev explained what drove him to build his Muslim volunteer unit and fight for Ukraine.

“I just want to return home, to Crimea,” said Akayev, 57, a gently-spoken father of 13 who sports a long greying beard and shaven head.

When Russia annexed his home region from Ukraine in 2014, Akayev moved to Kyiv and formed the Crimea battalion, a small unit dominated by Crimean Tatars, the Muslim Turkic group indigenous to the Black Sea peninsula.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, his unit’s 50 men took part in battles around the Kyiv region but are now seeking to be deployed to the southern front to fight in the Kherson region bordering Crimea.

Their eventual goal of recapturing Crimea looks harder than ever after much of the Kherson region fell under Russian control early in the war, pushing Ukrainian forces back more than 100 km (60 miles) from the peninsula.

But it is enough to rally the Tatars – and their Muslim Russian allies in the unit – behind the cause of Ukraine, which needs all the manpower it can muster as the war grinds towards its 100th day and Moscow’s forces make slow but steady progress.  – In Ukraine’s Eastern Donbass region, 
Scroll back up to restore default view.

ANNEXATION

Many Tatars opposed Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, which had followed the overthrow of a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president amid mass street protests.

Their suspicion of Moscow has deep roots. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the mass deportation of Crimea’s Tatars – Akayev’s grandparents among them – in 1944, accusing them of collaboration with Nazi Germany.

They were only allowed to return with their descendants in the 1980s – as Akayev did from Uzbekistan in 1989 – and many welcomed the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as a liberation.

Fearing a new wave of repression under Moscow’s rule, Akayev moved to Kyiv in 2014, where he was initially rebuffed by Ukraine’s security forces.

“It was very difficult, many people didn’t trust Muslims, and especially Crimean Tatars. Everyone thought we would be the separatists, not someone else,” he said.

But when Russian-backed separatists took up arms against Ukraine in its eastern Donbas region in 2014, all that changed.

His group was allowed to register as a volunteer unit under Ukraine’s interior ministry and fought in the ensuing conflict, with three of its men being wounded. Last month they signed contracts to become a fully-fledged unit of Ukraine’s army.

Dozens of other volunteer battalions sprang up in 2014 and began helping Ukraine’s unprepared regular army to fight in the Donbas. They included two Chechen units, a Georgian one, and several with a right-wing nationalist ethos. Some have since disarmed while others have joined the regular army.

Russia has been scathing about such units. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on the eve of the war that providing shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles to former volunteer battalions was evidence of a “militaristic psychosis”.

A Ukrainian presidential envoy said in March that such volunteer battalions now numbered more than 100. Ukraine’s government celebrates them as heroes, celebrating their exploits on an annual volunteers’ day.

TATAR IDENTITY

Just over half of Akayev’s battalion are Crimean Tatars, who make up about 15% of Crimea’s population.

“The core (of the unit) is Crimean because they want to liberate their peninsula, but they don’t have a rule that it should only be Crimeans,” said Serhiy, a Ukrainian who converted to Islam in 2004 and is the unit’s imam.

The Crimean cause provides a focus for the unit, which includes a number of Russian citizens. Its few non-Muslim members are required to follow certain rules, including a ban on alcohol.

“The Crimean Tatars… suffered more under Russian occupation, and so they feel closer to us,” says Muaz, an ethnic Kabardian from Russia’s North Caucasus who joined the battalion a year ago.

A United Nations report in 2017 accused Russia of committing “grave” human rights violations in Crimea, including subjecting the Tatars to intimidation, house searches and detentions.

Moscow, which in 2016 banned the Mejlis, a body representing Crimean Tatars, rejected the report’s findings. It says a March 2014 referendum legitimised its “incorporation” of Crimea.

The Crimea battalion performed reconnaissance against Russian forces around Yasnohorodka, a village 25km west of Kyiv, and later in nearby Motyzhyn, Akayev said.

“The residents here were initially very scared when they saw us because they didn’t know who we were. We had to shout ‘we are Ukrainian’… then people started slowly coming out of their homes and they gave us tea.”

Nearby, the burnt-out hotel bears a special significance for Akayev.

“We wanted to buy this place, to build a Crimean Tatar school and a mosque here… It didn’t come to anything, and then this happened,” Akayev said, gesturing at the building’s charred remains which he said was the result of Russian shelling.

“I (still) dream about this project, but really I just want to return home to Crimea.”

(Editing by Conor Humphries and Gareth Jones)

Insider

Top Russian lawmaker makes ridiculous claim Russian troops aren’t really dying in Ukraine amid reports of staggering losses

John Haltiwanger – June 1, 2022

• A top Russian lawmaker claimed that Russian soldiers have essentially stopped dying in Ukraine.
• Russia has not provided an updated official death toll from the war in Ukraine since March.
• Russia is estimated to have lost 15,000 troops since the war began in late February.

Russia is estimated to have lost as many as 15,000 soldiers, if not more, in the war in Ukraine so far. It is a staggering death toll by any standard, particularly given the conflict started just a few months ago in late February. But according to a top Russian lawmaker, its soldiers have essentially stopped dying in the war, even as the fighting rages on with no end in sight.

Andrey Kartapolov, head of Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament’s defense committee and former Russian military officer who previously served as the deputy defense minister, said on Wednesday that “we have practically ceased to lose people,” according to Moskovskij Komsomolets, a Moscow-based paper. “Currently, of course, there are wounded, but there are no such number of dead,” Kartapolov added, stating this is why the government had not provided an updated death toll in awhile.

The outlandish claim, which echoes Kremlin talking points that have been contradicted by a slew of other reports, reflects Moscow’s extraordinary efforts to hide the true scale of the Russian military’s losses in Ukraine from the Russian public.

According to the Russian government’s latest official numbers — which were released back in late March — 1,351 troops have been killed in Ukraine. Western intelligence agencies have placed the Russian death toll somewhere between 7,000 and 15,000. Ukraine’s official numbers put the Russian death toll as high as 30,000.

A recent report from the independent Russian website IStories that was based on an analysis of open source data found that over 3,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine. Similarly, an investigation from the BBC’s Russian Service published this week found that 3,052 Russian troops have died since the war began. Both reports underscored that the true Russian death toll is likely far higher, but these were the deaths that could be confirmed based on available information.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine has worked overtime to keep Russians in the dark on how poorly the war has gone.

Beyond statements from government officials, Russian state news constantly churns out bombastic claims on the Ukraine war, assuring Russians that the conflict is going well while reiterating the Kremlin’s baseless assertions that Russian troops are fighting neo-Nazis.

In reality, Russia has struggled to make major gains in its unprovoked war in Ukraine, failing to take the country’s two biggest cities — Kyiv and Kharkiv. The Russian military has made incremental progress in the east, where its focus turned after its unsuccessful campaign to seize the Ukrainian capital, but overall, top analysts widely agree that the war has been disastrous for Russia thus far.

Reuters

Biden agrees to provide Ukraine with longer range missiles

Jeff Mason and Steve Holland – May 31, 2022

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden has agreed to provide Ukraine with advanced rocket systems that can strike with precision at long-range Russian targets as part of a $700 million weapons package expected to be unveiled on Wednesday.

The United States is providing Ukraine with high mobility artillery rocket systems that can accurately hit targets as far away as 80 km (50 miles) after Ukraine gave “assurances” they will not use the missiles to strike inside Russia, senior administration officials said.

In a New York Times op-ed published Tuesday, Biden said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will end through diplomacy but the United States must provide significant weapons and ammunition to give Ukraine the highest leverage at the negotiating table.

“That’s why I’ve decided that 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.

The package also includes ammunition, counter fire radars, a number of air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as anti-armor weapons, officials said.

Ukrainian officials have been asking allies for longer-range missile systems that can fire a barrage of rockets hundreds of miles away, in the hopes of turning the tide in the three-month-long war.

Biden on Tuesday told reporters that “we’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia.”

He did not rule out providing any specific weapons system, but instead appeared to be placing conditions on how they could be used. Biden wants to help Ukraine defend itself but has been opposed to providing weapons that Ukraine could use to attack Russia.

Thousands of people have been killed in Ukraine and millions more displaced since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, which Moscow calls a “special military operation” to “denazify” its neighbor. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a baseless pretext for a war to seize territory.

The West has been increasingly willing to give Ukraine longer-range weaponry, including M777 howitzers, as its force battle Russians with more success than intelligence officials had predicted.

But U.S. intelligence has also warned about growing risks, particularly given a mismatch between Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent ambitions and the performance of his military.

Ukraine has started receiving Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Denmark and self-propelled howitzers from the United States, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Saturday.

(This story refiles to add dropped word “includes” in the fifth paragraph)

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Steve Holland and Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast.)

Reuters

U.S. agrees to send advanced rockets to Ukraine

Pavel Polityuk and Max Hunder – May 31, 2022

KYIV (Reuters) -Russian troops fought to take complete control of the eastern industrial city of Sievierodonetsk on Wednesday as the United States said it will provide Ukraine with advanced rockets to help it force Moscow to negotiate an end to the war.

President Joe Biden said the United States would provide Ukraine with more advanced rocket systems and munitions so it can “more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield”.

“We have moved quickly to send Ukraine a significant amount of weaponry and ammunition so it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table,” Biden wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times.

A senior Biden administration official said weaponry provided would include the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), which Ukraine’s armed forces chief said a month ago was “crucial” to counter Russian missile attacks.

Addressing concerns that such weapons could draw the United States into a direct conflict with Russia, senior administration officials said Ukraine gave assurances the missiles would not be used to strike inside Russia.

“These systems will be used by the Ukrainians to repel Russian advances on Ukrainian territory, but they will not be used on targets in Russian territory,” the U.S. official told reporters.

Shortly after the U.S. decision was announced, the Russian defence ministry said Russia’s nuclear forces were holding drills in the Ivanovo province, northeast of Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported.

Some 1,000 servicemen were exercising in intense manoeuvres using more than 100 vehicles including Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, it cited the ministry as saying.

There was no mention of the U.S. decision to supply new weapons in the Interfax report.

The latest U.S. pledge of weapons for Ukraine – on top of billions of dollars worth of equipment already provided including anti-aircraft missiles and drones – came as Russia pressed its assault to seize the eastern Donbas region, having abandoned its earlier thrust toward Kyiv from the north.

Russian troops have now taken control of most of the eastern industrial city of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk, one of two provinces in the Donbas, regional Governor Serhiy Gaidai on Tuesday.

Nearly all critical infrastructure in Sievierodonetsk had been destroyed and 60% of residential property damaged beyond repair, he said. Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver aid or evacuate people.

A Russian victory in Sievierodonetsk and its twin city of Lysychansk across the Siverskyi Donets river would bring full control of Luhansk, one of two eastern provinces Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.

A pro-Moscow separatist leader said Russian proxies had advanced slower than expected to “maintain the city’s infrastructure” and exercise caution around its chemical factories.

“We can say already that a third of Sievierodonetsk is already under our control,” Russia’s TASS state news agency quoted Leonid Pasechnik, the leader of the pro-Moscow Luhansk People’s Republic, as saying.

Gaidai warned Sievierodonetsk residents not to leave bomb shelters due to what he said was a Russian air strike on a nitric acid tank.

The Luhansk People’s Republic’s police force said Ukraine’s forces had damaged it. Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists traded accusations over a similar incident in April.

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency which had long operated out of Sievierodonetsk, said he was “horrified” by its destruction.

Up to 12,000 civilians remain caught in crossfire, without sufficient access to water, food, medicine or electricity, Egeland said.

“The near-constant bombardment is forcing civilians to seek refuge in bomb shelters and basements, with only few precious opportunities for those trying to escape,” he said.

WEAPONS PACKAGE

Ukraine says weapons sent by the United States and other countries since the beginning of the invasion have helped fend off Russian gains.

The high mobility artillery rocket systems are part of a $700 million weapons package expected to be unveiled by the United States on Wednesday.

The package includes ammunition, counter fire radars, a number of air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as anti-armour weapons, officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for more weapons while lambasting the European Union, which agreed on Monday to cut imports of Russian oil, for not sanctioning energy from Russia sooner.

The EU said it would ban imports of Russian oil by sea. Officials said that would halt two-thirds of Russia’s oil exports to Europe at first, and 90% by the end of this year.

Responding to the EU oil embargo, Russia widened its gas cuts to Europe, pushing up prices and ratcheted up its economic battle with Brussels.

Putin launched his “special operation” in February to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a baseless pretext for a war to seize territory.

Ukraine accuses Russia of war crimes on a huge scale, flattening cities and killing and raping civilians. Russia denies the accusations.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Stephen Coates; Editing Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast.)

Politico

Biden: U.S. will provide precision rockets to Ukraine

Lara Seligman and Paul McLeary – May 31, 2022

The U.S. will provide Ukraine with more advanced rocket systems and precision-guided munitions that will give them an edge on the battlefield, President Joe Biden wrote in an opinion article in the New York Times published Tuesday.

But Kyiv has given the United States assurances that the new weapons will be used in Ukraine and not against targets in Russia, senior administration officials told reporters after Biden’s op-ed was published.

“America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression,” Biden wrote. “We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia.”

Ukrainian officials have been clamoring for advanced, longer-range rocket systems for weeks, but Washington has been concerned with the range of the weapons. Officials worried that sending weapons that could reach targets in Russia could provoke President Vladimir Putin into committing further atrocities or escalating the conflict by using chemical or nuclear weapons.

The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) that the U.S. is sending is a mobile rocket launcher that can strike targets from 40 to over 300 miles away, depending on the type of rocket it is outfitted with. The rockets that the administration has decided to send are on the shorter end, reaching up to 48 miles, the officials said.

Along with the HIMARS, the U.S. will send “munitions that will enable the Ukrainians to more precisely strike targets on the battlefield from a greater distance,” according to one of the officials.

The officials stressed that the new rockets will be used solely to strike targets on the battlefield in Ukraine, not into Russia.

“We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” the official said.

In his op-ed, Biden addressed worldwide concerns about the conflict sparking a nuclear war. The U.S. currently sees “no indication that Russia has intent to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” Biden said though he stressed that Moscow’s “occasional rhetorical to rattle the nuclear saber is itself dangerous and extremely irresponsible.”

“Let me be clear: Any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us as well as the rest of the world and would entail severe consequences,” Biden wrote.

The HIMARS and its munitions are part of a new $700 million aid package for Ukraine, which will be announced on Wednesday, the officials said. The package also includes counterfire radars, a number of air surveillance radars, additional Javelin anti-tank missiles, anti-armor weapons, additional artillery rounds, helicopters, additional tactical vehicles and spare parts, the second official said.

While there are limitations placed on their range, the HIMARS is a vastly more modern weapons system than anything the Ukrainians, or the Russians, can currently put on the battlefield. The vehicle-mounted launchers can fire volleys of six guided rockets at a time that land within several feet of their intended target, an accuracy unmatched in the artillery duels taking place across the Donbas in Eastern Ukraine. The vehicle carrying the launchers can also travel at more than 50 miles per hour.

The system can be reloaded within minutes and a new target can be digitally entered into the fire control system. The Russian and Ukrainian multiple-rocket systems currently in the fight can fire more rockets — a dozen to several dozen at a time — but each volley takes longer to load, and a new target must be physically resighted and the launchers redirected using cranks. Such a slow, labor-intensive process makes the vehicles juicy targets for the counter-battery radar systems the U.S. has rushed to Ukraine.

Only a few countries other than the United States operate the system: Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Romania. Poland and Australia have each ordered 20 HIMARS systems in recent years but have not yet taken delivery.

Ukrayinska Pravda

Security Service of Ukraine: Ukrainian soldiers destroyed a large unit of Wagner Group fighters in Donbas

Ukrayinska Pravda – May 31, 2022

Ukrainian defenders destroyed a large unit of the Wagner Group [a network of mercenaries who serve as the de facto private army of Russian President Vladimir Putin] in Donbas.

Source: Security Service of Ukraine; Ukrainska Pravda’s interlocutor with law enforcement agencies

Details: A new telephone conversation between the invaders which was intercepted by the Security Service of Ukraine [SSU] showed that after the elimination of such an elite unit of Russian soldiers (according to a source, the Wagner group fighters were killed on 27 May), ordinary Russian occupiers are hesitating whether to fight.

Quote from the occupier: “So many ChVK Wagner [ChVK is the Russian abbreviation for Private Military Company] fighters were deployed there, where the border needs to be taken… But these ChVKs are of no use there! They all died there, these ChVKs. These are f**king special forces! Prepared, holy sh*t! They all died. Well, not all of them, there were some left. F**k if I know, I don’t see any other way out of this situation at all.”

Details: According to the intercepted call, the wife gives the occupier the right advice – “F**k them all, with their army.”

Previously: The Security Service of Ukraine has intercepted telephone conversations between Russian commanders in which they complain about their subordinates refusing to go on the offensive.

The New Voice of Ukraine

First wartime rape case sent to court, Ukraine’s prosecutor general says

May 30, 2022

Russia’s war against Ukraine – the main events of May 30

According to the prosecutor general, a Russian soldier from the 239th regiment of the 90th guards tank Vitebsk-Novgorod division, Mikhail Romanov, will be tried for the murder of a man and sexual abuse of his wife in Kyiv Oblast.

Read also: Russian pilot who changed lives of Chernihiv residents

The investigation states that in March, during the occupation of the Brovary district of Kyiv Oblast, the invader broke into a house in one of the villages and shot its owner. After that, under the influence of alcohol, the Russian soldier, together with his comrade-in-arms, raped a woman several times. They threatened the woman with weapons and violence against her child, who was nearby at that time.

The defendant has not yet been arrested.

Read also: UK floats war crimes tribunal for Russian leaders and soldiers

Venediktova stressed that he would not escape a fair trial and responsibility before the law. She also urged to report other possible crimes of the invader.

Earlier Liudmyla Denisova, the Ombudsman for Human Rights in Ukraine, said the cases of rape, of both adults and children, by Russian occupying forces had been revealed to be widespread after their retreat from Kyiv Oblast.

These, and other atrocities, were revealed to the world on the discovery of the bodies of civilians, tortured and murdered and dumped on the streets of Bucha, Irpin, Borodianka, and along the Zhytomyr highway.

Read also: Ukraine’s Internal Ministry identifies 13 victims of sexual violence in Kyiv Oblast

According to Denisova, it is now impossible to estimate the scale of sexual crimes committed by Russian forces during the occupation of Ukrainian settlements. The unwillingness of victims to testify may complicate things further, the Ombudsman says – law enforcement authorities are unable to record crimes that are not reported.