Photo of PHILIP FONG / AFP’s Japanese HIMARS launcher via Getty Images
Ukrainian forces are using new long-range rocket launchers provided by Western countries to attack targets far behind Russian lines, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The Times describes a “fireball” that “lit up the sky” over occupied Luhansk on Wednesday morning in what Russian media described as an attack on an aircraft battery.
Russian state media reported that similar attacks on ammunition depots near Kherson, in southern Ukraine, targeted civilians, causing seven deaths. The Ukrainian army rejected this claim.
According to the Times, Ukrainian forces are carrying out these attacks with “multiple truck-mounted rocket launchers known as high-mobility artillery rocket systems or HIMARS.”
As explained here in The Week, “HIMARS is a lighter and more mobile cousin of the [Multiple Launch Rocket System]”and has an effective range of more than 180 miles. That’s 10 times the range of M777 shells that the U.S. had sent to Ukraine.
On June 1, a US official confirmed that HIMARS was heading to Kyiv as part of a new $ 700 million military aid package.
If Ukraine is able to successfully disrupt Russian logistics and artillery operations, this could change the game. During the Donbas campaign, Russia has relied heavily on its huge artillery advantage to push back Ukrainian forces, firing about 50,000 rounds of artillery a day, 10 times more than Ukraine.
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