Ukraine lobbying US for longer-range missiles after ‘HIMARS strike kills Russian general’
- The United States has sent eight HIMARS rocket launchers to Ukraine, and said it is sending four more
- Weapons from Western countries have given Ukraine capability to attack deeper into Russian-controlled territory
Ukraine is lobbying the United States to supply it with longer-range missiles for the HIMARS rocket launchers, after targeting Russian military depots and claiming it killed a general with the US-supplied weapon.
Major General Artem Nasbulin of Russia was killed in the Kherson region by High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missiles, Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa regional administration spokesperson, said on Telegram on Tuesday.
Bratchuk did not say exactly where the attack took place, or when. Russia has not confirmed Nasbulin’s death – as has been common with other reported Russian deaths – and it has not been independently verified.
The US has sent eight HIMARS to Ukraine, and said last week that it was sending four more. The HIMARS system is more accurate than the systems Russia has, the BBC reported.
The US, EU, and other nations have been sending weapons to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on February 24. But Ukraine had repeatedly said that more were needed to beat Russia, including long-range weapons. Western nations then started to send those kinds of weapons.
The request for longer range US missiles was confirmed by Fedir Venyslavsky, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s defence committee, on Wednesday.
Separatists in east Ukraine report massive shelling with US weapons
Currently, the Ukrainian army only has missiles with a range of 70km for the HIMARS launcher, though ones with ranges of up to 300-500km are available.
Kyiv currently uses the less precise Tochka-U missiles, which have a range of up to 120km, for its longer-range strikes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that weapons from Western countries were allowing Ukraine to push back against Russia. However Ukraine’s Western partners have said publicly they do not want the weapons to be used to attack Russian territory.
The bridge is some 260km from the front line and Moscow has threatened to bomb Kyiv if the structure is attacked.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the Ukrainian military’s rumoured plans to target the Russian-built bridge as “terror”, but stressed that the bridge was sufficiently protected against such attacks.
The demand for longer-range missiles has caused concern in the US too, amid fears that Ukrainian forces could use US weapons to attack targets on Russian territory, risking a further escalation of the conflict.
The Russian-controlled city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine had come under repeated fire from HIMARS rocket launchers, according to a Telegram post by pro-Russian separatist representative Andrey Marochko on Wednesday.
The head of the Ukrainian military administration of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said that the strikes had been targeting military depots.
Russian media reported Ukrainian armed forces also launched a missile attack in a strategically important Russian-held southern area of Kherson that Kyiv is hoping to retake.
In Ukraine-Russia war, echoes of WWI with artillery duels and trenches
RIA news agency quoted the Russian-backed administration of Kherson region as saying Russian air defences shot down five missiles fired at the town of Nova Kakhovka, while the debris of two of the missiles fell near a factory.
Meanwhile, Russian forces targeted a number of civilian facilities in the southern city of Mykolayiv on Thursday, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said on Telegram. Rescuers and emergency teams are already working on the ground, he added.
In the industrialised Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Russian missiles hit the industrial zone of Kramatorsk and electricity was cut in some parts of the city, Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko wrote on Facebook.
A Russian strike destroyed a school in Donbas on Wednesday. No casualties were reported.
Russia denies deliberately attacking civilians.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused Europe’s biggest conflict since 1945. Millions have fled, thousands have been killed while cities have been reduced to rubble and fears of a wider conflict in the West have grown.
The Kremlin says it is engaged in a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject that as a false pretext to invade Ukraine.
dpa, Reuters, Business Insider
