KYIV: Britain on Thursday pledged to send sophisticated medium-range rocket systems UkraineJoin the United States and Germany to equip the war-torn nation with advanced weapons to shoot down planes and shoot down artillery.
Western weapons have been key to Ukraine’s success in standoff RussiaThe much larger and better equipped army is now in its 99th day of war. But as Russian forces closed in on a major city in recent days, the Ukrainian government said its fighters needed better rocket launchers.
A Kremlin spokesman again warned of “absolutely undesirable and rather unpleasant scenarios” if the latest Western-supplied weapons were fired in Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “Pumping Ukraine with weapons … will bring more suffering to Ukraine, which is only a tool in the hands of countries that supply weapons to it.”
The Russian army continued to encircle towns and cities overnight and consolidated its hold on the eastern city of Svyarodonetsk. The UK Defense Ministry reported that Russia had captured most of the city, one of two in Luhansk province that had remained under Ukrainian control.
As fighting broke out in the east of Ukraine, some residents were forced to flee Russian attempts to storm the capital, KyivHe was faced with the overwhelming task of rebuilding his broken life.
Neela Zelinska and her husband, Eduard, returned to the burnt ruins of their home outside Kyiv for the first time this week. During the war, he fled with his 82-year-old mother amid Russian shelling and air raids.
Zelinska cried and recovered a doll from the rubble that belonged to one of her grandchildren, holding her as if she were a real child.
“May there be peace on earth, peace so that our people do not suffer so much,” he said.
Ukrainian President, speaking by video link for a security conference in Slovakia Volodymyr Zelensky Calling for even more weapons and sanctions targeting Russia to prevent such horrors.
“To date, the occupiers have controlled about 20% of our territory, about 125,000 square kilometers (48,262 sq mi),” he said.
Zelensky said Russia had fired 15 cruise missiles the previous day and used a total of 2,478 missiles since attacking Ukraine, “most of them targeting civilian infrastructure.”
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the UK would send an unspecified number of M270 launchers, which can fire precision-guided rockets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles). He said Ukrainian soldiers would be trained in the UK to use the equipment.
The British government says the decision to provide the launchers was made in conjunction with the US government, which said on Wednesday it would supply high mobility artillery rocket systems to Ukraine.
The two missile systems are similar, although the American has wheels while the British – also US made – run on tracks.
Germany was criticized for not doing enough to help Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf said on Wednesday that his country would supply Ukraine with advanced anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems. He told lawmakers that the IRIS-T surface-to-air missiles Germany is planning to provide are the country’s most advanced air defense systems.
Sweden also announced plans to donate arms to Kyiv on Thursday. These include missiles, semi-automatic rifles and anti-tank weapons, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Haltquist Told. The donation is expected to be approved by the country’s parliament.
After Western supplied weapons helped Ukraine stop Russian attempts to storm the capital, Moscow shifted its focus to occupying all of the industrial Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. As Russia’s military continues to bomb areas occupied by Ukraine, its offensive there resulted in an escalation over the past week.
A Ukrainian military expert said Russian missile strikes had increased in response to the new promised weapons.
“The supply of Western weapons is of great concern to the Kremlin, as the Ukrainian military is aggressively resisting the offensive, even without sufficient weapons,” military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told the Associated Press.
Analysts expect Russia to topple the Donbass before any weapons that could turn the tide. The Pentagon said it would take at least three weeks to bring precision American weapons and trained soldiers to the battlefield. But Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl said he believed they would arrive in time to bring about a turnaround in the fight.
Kyiv is also set to receive a diplomatic boost with the formal installation of a new US ambassador to Ukraine. US Ambassador Bridget Brink was set to hand over her credentials to Zelensky on Thursday.
Brink will be Washington’s first ambassador to Kyiv since former US president Donald Trump In 2019, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was suddenly thrown out. She later became a key figure in the first impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Ahead of her Senate confirmation last month, Brink promised senators that she would work to make Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “strategic failure.” His work in Kyiv is expected to focus on coordinating Western arms shipments.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Ukraine’s repeated push for more weapons “direct provocations with the intention of drawing the West into the fight”. He warned that multiple US-supplied rocket launchers would increase the risk of an extended conflict.
Meanwhile, Russian forces continued to bombard the Donbass and other parts of Ukraine, while ground troops advanced an inch to the east.
A regional governor said Russian forces now control 80% of Svyarodonetsk, a city that is key to Moscow’s efforts to capture the Donbass. The Ukrainian army and Russia-backed separatists have fought in the eastern sector for eight years, and separatists occupied the area before the Russian invasion.
Military analyst Zhdanov noted that after the fierce fighting in and around Svierodonetsk, the Russian army would be “tired”, and military leaders would need to replenish both their troops and weapons.
“Ukraine will try to use this pause to stockpile Western weapons, create a strategic reserve and prepare a counterattack,” he said.
Lisichansk, the only other city in Luhansk province not yet captured by the Russians, is still under full Ukrainian control, the governor said, but is likely to be the next target. Two cities are separated by a river.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Thursday that Moscow’s military also attacked the city of Komyshuvakha in the southeastern Zaporizhzhya region, a large part of which is under Russian control.
Officials said in the western Lviv region, a Russian missile hit rail lines that were a major means of supplying Western weapons and other supplies.
In his video address of the night, the President of Ukraine focused on the children of his country. He said 243 of them were killed in the war, 446 were injured and 139 were missing. The actual number could be higher, he said, as his government does not have a complete picture of the Russian-occupied territories.
Zelensky said that 200,000 children were among Ukrainians who were forcibly taken to Russia and dispersed across that vast country: “The aim of this criminal policy is not just to steal people, but to make exiles forget about Ukraine.” and unable to return.”
Western weapons have been key to Ukraine’s success in standoff RussiaThe much larger and better equipped army is now in its 99th day of war. But as Russian forces closed in on a major city in recent days, the Ukrainian government said its fighters needed better rocket launchers.
A Kremlin spokesman again warned of “absolutely undesirable and rather unpleasant scenarios” if the latest Western-supplied weapons were fired in Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “Pumping Ukraine with weapons … will bring more suffering to Ukraine, which is only a tool in the hands of countries that supply weapons to it.”
The Russian army continued to encircle towns and cities overnight and consolidated its hold on the eastern city of Svyarodonetsk. The UK Defense Ministry reported that Russia had captured most of the city, one of two in Luhansk province that had remained under Ukrainian control.
As fighting broke out in the east of Ukraine, some residents were forced to flee Russian attempts to storm the capital, KyivHe was faced with the overwhelming task of rebuilding his broken life.
Neela Zelinska and her husband, Eduard, returned to the burnt ruins of their home outside Kyiv for the first time this week. During the war, he fled with his 82-year-old mother amid Russian shelling and air raids.
Zelinska cried and recovered a doll from the rubble that belonged to one of her grandchildren, holding her as if she were a real child.
“May there be peace on earth, peace so that our people do not suffer so much,” he said.
Ukrainian President, speaking by video link for a security conference in Slovakia Volodymyr Zelensky Calling for even more weapons and sanctions targeting Russia to prevent such horrors.
“To date, the occupiers have controlled about 20% of our territory, about 125,000 square kilometers (48,262 sq mi),” he said.
Zelensky said Russia had fired 15 cruise missiles the previous day and used a total of 2,478 missiles since attacking Ukraine, “most of them targeting civilian infrastructure.”
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the UK would send an unspecified number of M270 launchers, which can fire precision-guided rockets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles). He said Ukrainian soldiers would be trained in the UK to use the equipment.
The British government says the decision to provide the launchers was made in conjunction with the US government, which said on Wednesday it would supply high mobility artillery rocket systems to Ukraine.
The two missile systems are similar, although the American has wheels while the British – also US made – run on tracks.
Germany was criticized for not doing enough to help Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf said on Wednesday that his country would supply Ukraine with advanced anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems. He told lawmakers that the IRIS-T surface-to-air missiles Germany is planning to provide are the country’s most advanced air defense systems.
Sweden also announced plans to donate arms to Kyiv on Thursday. These include missiles, semi-automatic rifles and anti-tank weapons, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Haltquist Told. The donation is expected to be approved by the country’s parliament.
After Western supplied weapons helped Ukraine stop Russian attempts to storm the capital, Moscow shifted its focus to occupying all of the industrial Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. As Russia’s military continues to bomb areas occupied by Ukraine, its offensive there resulted in an escalation over the past week.
A Ukrainian military expert said Russian missile strikes had increased in response to the new promised weapons.
“The supply of Western weapons is of great concern to the Kremlin, as the Ukrainian military is aggressively resisting the offensive, even without sufficient weapons,” military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told the Associated Press.
Analysts expect Russia to topple the Donbass before any weapons that could turn the tide. The Pentagon said it would take at least three weeks to bring precision American weapons and trained soldiers to the battlefield. But Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl said he believed they would arrive in time to bring about a turnaround in the fight.
Kyiv is also set to receive a diplomatic boost with the formal installation of a new US ambassador to Ukraine. US Ambassador Bridget Brink was set to hand over her credentials to Zelensky on Thursday.
Brink will be Washington’s first ambassador to Kyiv since former US president Donald Trump In 2019, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was suddenly thrown out. She later became a key figure in the first impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Ahead of her Senate confirmation last month, Brink promised senators that she would work to make Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “strategic failure.” His work in Kyiv is expected to focus on coordinating Western arms shipments.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Ukraine’s repeated push for more weapons “direct provocations with the intention of drawing the West into the fight”. He warned that multiple US-supplied rocket launchers would increase the risk of an extended conflict.
Meanwhile, Russian forces continued to bombard the Donbass and other parts of Ukraine, while ground troops advanced an inch to the east.
A regional governor said Russian forces now control 80% of Svyarodonetsk, a city that is key to Moscow’s efforts to capture the Donbass. The Ukrainian army and Russia-backed separatists have fought in the eastern sector for eight years, and separatists occupied the area before the Russian invasion.
Military analyst Zhdanov noted that after the fierce fighting in and around Svierodonetsk, the Russian army would be “tired”, and military leaders would need to replenish both their troops and weapons.
“Ukraine will try to use this pause to stockpile Western weapons, create a strategic reserve and prepare a counterattack,” he said.
Lisichansk, the only other city in Luhansk province not yet captured by the Russians, is still under full Ukrainian control, the governor said, but is likely to be the next target. Two cities are separated by a river.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Thursday that Moscow’s military also attacked the city of Komyshuvakha in the southeastern Zaporizhzhya region, a large part of which is under Russian control.
Officials said in the western Lviv region, a Russian missile hit rail lines that were a major means of supplying Western weapons and other supplies.
In his video address of the night, the President of Ukraine focused on the children of his country. He said 243 of them were killed in the war, 446 were injured and 139 were missing. The actual number could be higher, he said, as his government does not have a complete picture of the Russian-occupied territories.
Zelensky said that 200,000 children were among Ukrainians who were forcibly taken to Russia and dispersed across that vast country: “The aim of this criminal policy is not just to steal people, but to make exiles forget about Ukraine.” and unable to return.”