The United Kingdom will send an “avant-garde” rocket system to Ukraine to help troops fight Russia’s advance on the country’s stormed east, defying Vladimir Putin’s threat.
The M270 multi-launch rocket system is now heading to the battlefield, despite the warning from Mr. Putin that the longer-range missile supply would make Russia hit harder.
It can hit targets up to 50 miles (80 km) away with “point accuracy”, according to the Ministry of Defense (MoD).
The compromise came when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the cities of Lysychansk and Soledar, after previously visiting the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.
Lysychansk is located in Luhansk and Soledar in Donetsk: together the eastern regions form the Donbas, which is now the focus of the Russian war and the scene of fierce fighting.
Mr Zelenskyy shared videos of the trip and said: “I am proud of everyone I met, everyone I shook hands with, everyone I connected with and had expressed my support.”
In Zaporizhzhia, he visited a medical center and spoke with people forced to leave their homes because of the war, including people from Mariupol, now under Russian control after a siege of punishment.
Image: Mr. Zelenskyy met with military commanders in Zaporizhzhya Image: The president also met with people who have been forced to leave their homes
Ukrainian troops will come to the UK
The Ministry of Defense said its latest move was coordinated with the recent decision by the United States to give a variant of the same system and that it was following calls for long-range precision weapons to attack artillery. Russian heavy.
Ukrainian troops will come to the UK to learn how to use the weapon, which is manned by a three-person crew and mounted on an armored tracking launcher.
To date, the UK has donated £ 750 million in military equipment, including more than 5,000 anti-tank missiles and 120 armored vehicles.
Image: Where things are on the 102nd day of the war
“New insidious attacks”
Meanwhile, Kyiv’s five-week rest period was broken early Sunday when two outlying districts, Darnytsky and Dniprovsky, were attacked by missiles.
Moscow said it had destroyed tanks supplied by Western allies, while Ukraine said the attack had affected repair work on a railroad car. No death was reported immediately, but one person was taken to hospital.
The capital had not seen a similar attack since late April.
“The Kremlin is resorting to more insidious attacks. Today’s missile attacks in Kyiv have only one goal: to kill as many as possible,” tweeted Presidential Adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.
In the east, the heart of the Russian offensive, the towns and villages of the Luhansk region were again with missiles and airstrikes.
Regional Governor Serhiy Haidai said the helicopters had attacked Girske and Myrna Dolyna, while Ustynivka was the target of a Su-25 aircraft.
Image: Smoke rises after missile attacks in Kyiv
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Other attacks were reported in Lysychansk – where he visited Zelenskyy – and in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, north of Donetsk.
However, the Ukrainian army said it had repulsed seven attacks across the Donbass, shooting down a helicopter and destroying four tanks.
Image: Smoke rises after missile attacks in Kyiv Image: Ukrainian soldier with NLAW anti-tank weapon near Bakhmut in Donbas
A counterattack in Severodonetsk also recaptured a strip of territory and put Ukraine in control of half the city, according to Haidai.
The city has in recent weeks become a key battleground in the Moscow affair to seize the Donbas.
The Defense Ministry said on Sunday that counterattacks there had probably diminished Russia’s “operational momentum”.
Another senior commander has also been reportedly killed.
Russian state journalist Alexander Sladkov told the Telegram application that Major General Roman Kutuzov had died in eastern Ukraine, joining a number of Kremlin military leaders who had apparently died in the war.
The Kremlin has not commented on the report.