Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – The British government said on Monday that the multi-launch rocket systems it is offering in Ukraine will bring “a significant increase in capacity” for the country’s efforts to resist the invasion of Russia. pointed to the commemorations of the day D. in the north of France.
“If the international community continues to support it, I believe Ukraine can win” its war against Russia, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in a statement.
The statement came after comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday warned the West not to send more powerful rocket systems to Ukraine, where the war was in its 103rd day.
The British government described the M270 weapons system as an “avant-garde” military asset that can hit targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away “with extreme accuracy”. The system is manned by three gunners and is mounted on an armored launcher with tracks.
The United Kingdom pledged last week to send weapons. He did not give details of the delivery dates.
Last week, the United States announced plans to provide $ 700 million in security assistance to Ukraine, including four precision-guided medium-range rocket systems, as well as helicopters, Javelin anti-tank systems, radars, and tactical vehicles. and much more.
Washington and London hope that the deliveries will help Ukraine change the course of the war in its eastern Donbas region, which Russia appears to want to capture completely.
However, they are unlikely to have an immediate impact. The Pentagon said last week that it would take at least three weeks to bring U.S. weapons to the battlefield. Russia-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government in the Donbas since 2014.
The United States has not offered Ukraine longer-range weapons (those with a range of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles)) that could fire deep into Russia and could inflame tensions with Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned the West that if it provides Ukraine with long-range rockets, Moscow will respond by taking larger areas of Ukraine.
Speaking at an online press conference on Monday, Lavrov said that “the greater the range of weapons you supply, the farther the line from where neo-Nazis could threaten the Russian Federation.” Moscow says it is fighting neo-Nazis in Ukraine, a false statement mocked by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish and lost relatives during the Holocaust.
Ukraine’s fight was at the forefront of comments by the president of the U.S. Chiefs of Staff and was heard by D-Day veterans who met in Normandy on Monday.
“The struggle in Ukraine is to honor these World War II veterans,” Army General Mark Milley said at the Colleville-sur-Mer Cemetery, overlooking Omaha Beach.
“It’s about maintaining the so-called international order based on global rules that was established by the dead who are buried here in this cemetery,” he said.
D-Day veteran Charles Shay, 97, went to Omaha Beach to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the June 6, 1944, landing, and to pay tribute to those who fell that day.
Asked about his feelings about the ongoing war on the European continent, Shay told The Associated Press that “this is a very sad situation.”
“In 1944 I landed on these beaches and we thought we would make peace in the world. But it is not possible “, he added with regret.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, meanwhile, criticized Sunday’s refusal to blow up his plane in Serbia as “cynical” and “unthinkable.” Reports said neighbors in Serbia, Bulgaria, northern Macedonia and Montenegro had refused to allow the plane to fly through its airspace to reach Serbia.
“A sovereign state has been deprived of its right to pursue foreign policy,” Lavrov told an online news conference.
He blamed NATO allies, with whom Moscow disagrees, for designing the flight ban, saying it revealed that the main goal of the alliance’s expansion is to try to isolate Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia’s own use of missiles in Ukraine continued to hit targets, and the Russian military said on Monday that it had hit a Ukrainian factory that was repairing armor.
Russian warplanes fired long-range missiles to destroy a plant near the city of Lozova in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, which was repairing armored vehicles, said a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry. Commander-in-Chief Igor Konashenkov.
Russian planes hit 73 areas of concentration of Ukrainian troops and equipment, while Russian artillery hit 431 military targets, Konashenkov said. His claims could not be independently verified.
Putin promised to attack the heart of Ukraine more deeply if the West sends more powerful missile systems to Kyiv. In a showdown, Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Sunday.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that Russian forces fired five X-22 cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea towards Kyiv, and one was destroyed by air defenses. Four more missiles hit “infrastructure facilities”, but Ukraine said there were no casualties.
Prior to the attack on Sunday morning, Kyiv had not faced any Russian airstrikes since the April 28 visit of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
On Sunday, Zelenskyy visited the command posts and front-line positions of Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which make up the Donbas.
A regional governor of Ukraine said on Monday that the situation in a key eastern city has worsened for the defense of troops.
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said on Monday that heavy fighting continues in the city of Sievierodonetsk, which is the epicenter of the Russian offensive.
He described the fighting situation as “quite dynamic”, adding that Ukrainian forces had lost some of the gains made over the weekend, but maintained their positions in the city’s industrial zone.
“Our defenders managed to go on a counter-offensive and liberate almost half of the city, but now the situation has worsened again,” Haidai told The Associated Press in written answers to the questions.
“The bombing of Sievierodonetsk has intensified, (the Russians) are destroying everything according to their scorched earth tactics,” he said. The Russians “have a huge amount of equipment and staff. They have accumulated a lot of reserves, “he said.
Russian forces have focused on capturing Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
To the west of these cities, in the cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut, military cars and vehicles have been speeding into the city from the direction of the front line. Dozens of military doctors and paramedics worked Sunday to evacuate Ukrainian civilians and military, many of whom had been wounded by artillery shelling.
Western military intelligence reports say Ukrainian counterattacks in Sieverodonetsk are likely to halt the operational momentum that Russian forces previously gained by concentrating their combat units and firepower in the area.
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David Keyton and Hanna Arhirova contributed to this report.
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