Joe Biden has announced that the US will send medium-range rocket systems to Ukraine to help its forces as they fight to curb Russian progress, in an apparent change of opinion.
The president of the United States said on Monday that Washington “will not send rocket systems to Ukraine that could attack Russia.”
But with Vladimir Putin’s forces advancing in the Donbas region, the decision to hand over the high-mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS) was made on the condition that Ukraine not use it to launch attacks on the Donbas region. border.
Live news from Ukraine: Russian nuclear forces conducting drills
Officials say the systems are part of a new $ 700 million (£ 556 million) security assistance package for Kyiv that will include helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapons systems, tactical vehicles, spare parts and much more.
The White House hopes that the decision to provide advanced rocket systems will strike a balance between the desire to help Ukraine avoid Russian artillery bombardment without providing weapons that could trigger an escalation of the war.
In a guest essay published in The New York Times, Biden confirmed that he had decided to “provide Ukrainians with more advanced rocket and ammunition systems that would allow them to attack key targets on the Ukrainian battlefield more accurately.”
Any weapons system can fire on Russia if it is close enough to the border.
The aid package to be unveiled on Wednesday would send what the U.S. considers medium-range rockets, which can generally travel about 45 miles.
Senior government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity before the official announcement said Ukrainians had assured US officials that they would not fire rockets at Russian territory.
They said the systems, however, would give Ukrainian forces greater precision in targeting Russian assets within Ukraine.
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The expectation is that Ukraine will be able to use rockets in the eastern Donbas region, where both can intercept Russian artillery and eliminate Russian positions in cities where fighting is intense, such as Severodonetsk.
Severodonetsk is key to Russian efforts to capture the Donbas before more Western weapons arrive to bolster Ukraine’s defense.
The city 90 miles south of the Russian border is the last pocket of land under Ukrainian government control in the Luhansk region of the Donbas.
Biden said in his New York Times essay, “We are not encouraging or allowing Ukraine to go beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia.”
Image: A badly damaged residential building in a Russian bombing in Bakhmut, north of Severodonetsk. Image: AP
“Any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict … would have serious consequences”
He also used the test to allay fears about nuclear attacks, while warning Putin’s regime.
“I know a lot of people around the world are worried about the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.
“We do not currently see any indication that Russia intends to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, although Russia’s occasional rhetoric to shake the nuclear sword is in itself dangerous and extremely irresponsible.
“Let me be clear: any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us and to the rest of the world and would have serious consequences.”
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The rocket systems would be part of the Pentagon’s withdrawal authority, so they would involve taking weapons from the U.S. inventory and bringing them quickly to Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops would also need training on the new systems, which could take at least a week or two.
The HIMARS is mounted on a truck and can carry a six-rocket container.
While it can launch a medium-range rocket, it is also capable of firing a long-range missile, the Army Tactical Missile System, which has a range of about 190 miles but is not part of the plan.
Since the war began in February, the United States and its allies have tried to tread a narrow line by sending weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia, but without offering help that will inflame Putin and trigger a wider conflict that could spread elsewhere. . of Europe.