Joe Biden has said that the United States will not supply Ukraine with rockets that could reach Russia, in an attempt to ease tensions with Moscow over the possible deployment of long-range missiles with a range of about 185 miles.
The White House has been weighing in on demands from Ukraine, which is losing ground in the battle for the Donbass, for multi-launch rocket systems (MLRS) to offset the increasingly effective use of long-range artillery. Moscow, amid Russian warnings that it would cross. a red line.
“We will not send rocket systems to Ukraine that could attack Russia,” Biden told reporters Monday after returning to the White House after a weekend in Delaware.
The US-made MLRS comes in many different variants, which in turn use a variety of ammunition. The longest range can fire missiles up to 185 miles away, but others use rockets with a shorter range of 20 to 40 miles.
The exact meaning of Biden’s comment Monday was unclear, but it was consistent with other conferences over the weekend that the White House was willing to provide MLRS as long as it retained the long-range missiles.
This was repeated on Monday. A senior US official said: “The MLRS is under consideration, but there is nothing on the table with long-range attack capabilities.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Biden’s statements “reasonable” and warned that if his country’s cities had been attacked, then Russian forces would have “attacked the center of these criminal decisions.”
Ukraine seems on the verge of losing the city of Sievierodonetsk, the easternmost city in the Donbas region, amid relentless Russian artillery bombardment that has destroyed large parts of a city that had a population of before the war of 100,000 inhabitants.
Images released by Russia are intended to show separatist soldiers in Sievierodonetsk: video
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged on Sunday afternoon that “all critical infrastructure” and “more than two-thirds of the city’s housing stock” had been “completely destroyed” as he called for “weapons” more modern to defend our land, “to defend our people.”
Nick Reynolds, a ground war specialist from the Russian expert group, said: “The disparity in artillery capacity is a major factor in allowing Russian ground forces to continue advancing.”
Russian firepower was preventing Ukrainian forces from gathering for counterattacks, the analyst said, adding that the MLRS could help Kyiv “disrupt all activity in enemy rear areas.” .
Last week, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry released a video of what it said was the bombing of its positions with Russian TOS-1A rocket launchers in the Donetsk area. “Ukraine is ready to counterattack. To do that, we need NATO-style MLRS. Immediately,” the ministry’s Twitter channel said.
The M270 crawler MLRS and its wheel equivalent, the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), have a much larger range than anything Ukraine can deploy at the moment. Its use could allow Kyiv to hit Russian targets from further back, although it could expose more of its interior to retaliation.
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Ukraine started the war with artillery such as Soviet standard shells with a range of about 10 miles, before the US agreed to send 90 pieces of NATO M777 standard artillery to Ukraine. Depending on the shells used, M777s can range up to 25 miles.
A US Army M777 howitzer during exercises in northeastern Poland last November. Photo: Tomasz Waszczuk / EPA
Other NATO members can follow the US example. Ukraine has also been pressuring the UK to supply some of its own M270s, with some sources complaining that Britain has been dragging its feet. The British M270 has a range of 52 miles, although 44 of the Army stock are being upgraded to 93 miles.
Last Friday, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson said that the MLRS would allow the Ukrainians to “defend themselves against such brutal Russian artillery, and this is where the world should go.” His remarks, a public acknowledgment of Ukraine’s request, fueled expectations of an announcement that could arrive in a few days.
U.S. news sessions have suggested that an announcement could come later this week, following Monday’s Memorial Day celebration.