The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Ukrainians get U.s.-made Patriot missile systems
>> American-made Patriot missiles have arrived in Ukraine, the country’s defense minister said Wednesday, providing Kyiv with a longsought new shield against the Russian airstrikes that have devastated cities and civilian infrastructure.
The U.S. agreed in October to send the surface-toair systems, which can target aircraft, cruise missiles and shorter-range ballistic missiles such as those that Russia has used to bombard residential areas and the Ukrainian power grid.
“Today, our beautiful Ukrainian sky becomes more secure,” Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a tweet.
The missiles are the latest contribution from Western allies, who have also pledged tanks, artillery and some types of fighter jets as Ukraine gears up for an expected counteroffensive.
Reznikov thanked the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, without saying how many missile systems had been delivered or when they arrived.
Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said late Tuesday that delivery of the systems would be a landmark event, allowing Ukrainians to knock out Russian targets at a greater distance.
Germany’s federal government website on Tuesday listed a Patriot system as among the military items delivered within the past week to Ukraine. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock confirmed that to lawmakers Wednesday in Berlin.
Germany has also delivered the second of four medium-range IRIS-T air defense systems that it
pledged last year, Baerbock said.
$325 million in aid
The U.S. is sending Ukraine about $325 million in additional military aid, including an enormous amount of artillery rounds and ammunition as the launch of the spring offensive against Russian forces approaches, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
The U.S. has declined to say exactly how much munitions will be sent to Ukraine, but the latest package resembles other recent deliveries, which included rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and howitzers, as well as an array of other missiles and anti-tank ammunition. It will all be pulled from Pentagon stocks.
A Ukrainian official warned on Monday that it is only a matter of time before his country is militarily prepared to begin its counteroffensive. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told The Associated Press in an interview in Kyiv that the offensive against Russian troops will start when Ukraine’s troops are ready. And he
said deliveries of armored vehicles and ammunition are key to the launch.
Russian strikes
Kyiv officials have reported daily civilian, but not military, casualties from Russian bombardment.
At least four civilians were killed and 27 others were wounded Tuesday and overnight, Ukraine’s defense ministry reported.
A 50-year-old man and 44-year-old woman were killed in a Russian airstrike on a border town in the northeastern Kharkiv region, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said in televised remarks.
Russian forces launched 12 rocket, artillery, mortar, tank and drone attacks on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, killing one civilian at a market in the center of Kherson, the region’s namesake capital, and a nearby school, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said.
A woman was killed and another was wounded in northern Ukraine after Russian forces shelled the border village of Richki.
Russian forces also fired exploding drones at Ukraine’s southern Odesa region.