Mariupol blasts suggest Ukraine has new longer-range arms

KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military on Thursday said the southern port city of Mariupol was now within reach of its weapons, suggesting without providing details that Kyiv has longer-range weapons at its disposal than it did even a month ago.

“At this stage, we can only say that distance is a very relative notion,” Natalia Humeniuk, the spokesperson for the Ukrainian military southern command said in an appearance on national television, adding, “The Mariupol front is not absolutely unattainable for us.”

The deliberate vagueness of her comments were in keeping with Ukraine’s interest in keeping Moscow guessing about what weapons Kyiv has available and making Russian forces feel unsafe everywhere in the territory they occupy.

For two consecutive nights, explosions have rocked Mariupol, including blasts near the airport and around a steel plant. Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city’s exiled mayor, said Thursday that Ukrainian forces directed three “surgically precise” hits on concentrations of Russian forces.

But Mariupol falls just outside the range of the precision-guided munitions provided to Ukraine by its Western allies: HIMARS and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, which can reach targets around 43 miles away.

That raised questions about whether the attack was the work of saboteurs behind enemy lines or if Ukraine might have acquired the kind of long-range weapon it has said it needed to attack Russian command centers, ammunition depots and supply lines deep in enemy territory.

Ukraine has used attack drones to hit targets at a far greater distance than its other weapons allow. Given the pattern of strikes and the comments from the Ukrainian military, speculation was swirling that it may have acquired a new weapon.

The New Voice of Ukraine, a Kyiv-based digital news site, said it was possible that a domestically produced weapon was used to hit Mariupol, using a heavy multiple rocket launch system based on the Soviet Smerch design that could have a range of more than 80 miles.

Much of the speculation has also centered on the possible use of Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs, which have a range of about 94 miles.

The Pentagon press secretary, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, said earlier this month that the United States would be providing the weapons to give Ukrainian forces a longer-range capability “that will enable them again to conduct operations in defense of their country and to take back their sovereign territory in Russian occupied areas.” It was thought, however, that those weapons could take months to arrive on the battlefield.