UK set to send rocket launchers to Ukraine
THE UK yesterday pledged to send sophisticated mediumrange rocket systems to Ukraine, joining the United States and Germany in equipping the embattled nation with advanced weapons for shooting down aircraft and knocking out artillery.
Western arms have been critical to Ukraine’s successes in countering Russia’s much larger and betterequipped military during the war, which reaches its 100th day today, but, as Russian forces closed in on a key city in recent days, the Ukrainian government said its fighters needed better rocket launchers to prevail.
A Kremlin spokesman again warned of “absolutely undesirable and rather unpleasant scenarios” if the latest Western-supplied weapons were fired into Russia.
“This pumping of Ukraine with weapons ... will bring more suffering to Ukraine, which is merely a tool in the hands of those countries that supply it with weapons,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters yesterday.
Russian forces continued to pound towns and cities and to tighten their grip on the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk. The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported that Russia had captured most of the city, one of two in Luhansk province that had remained under Ukrainian control.
Speaking by video link to a security conference in Slovakia, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called for even more weapons and sanctions targeting Russia. “As of today, the occupiers control almost 20% of our territory, almost 48,262 square miles,” he said.
Mr Zelensky said Russia had fired 15 cruise missiles in the past day and had used a total of 2,478 missiles since invading Ukraine on February 24, and added “most of them targeted civil infrastructure”.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the UK would send an unspecified number of M270 launchers, which can fire precision-guided rockets up to 50 miles. Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK to use the equipment, he said.
The UK Government says the decision to provide the launchers was coordinated closely with the US government, which said on Wednesday that it would supply High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to Ukraine. The two missile systems are similar, though the American one has wheels while the British one – also US-built – runs on tracks.
Germany had come under criticism that it was not doing enough to help Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday that his country would supply Ukraine with modern anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems. He said the IRIS-T’s surface-toair missiles Germany plans to provide are the most modern air defence system the country has.
Sweden also announced plans to donate arms to Kyiv. They include missiles, semi-automatic rifles and anti-tank weapons, Swedish defence minister Peter Hultqvist said. The country’s parliament is expected to approve the donation.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov called Ukraine’s repeated push for more weapons a “direct provocation intended to draw the West into the fighting”. He warned that US-supplied multiple rocket launchers would raise the risk of an expanded conflict.
Meanwhile, Russian forces kept up their bombardment of the Donbas and other parts of Ukraine, while ground troops made a slow advance in the east of the country.
Russian forces reportedly control 80% of Sievierodonetsk, a city that is key to Moscow’s efforts to complete its capture of the Donbas. The only other city in Luhansk province that the Russians have not yet captured, Lysychansk, is said to be still fully under Ukrainian control.