Moscow –
President United States of America (USA) Joe Biden refuses to ship rocket system to Ukraine. Biden’s request was rejected in the midst of conditions in Ukraine that are increasingly being squeezed by Russia.
Biden said he would not send a rocket system capable of hitting targets inside Russia to Ukraine. Biden’s refusal came after an urgent request from Kiev for long-range weapons in the face of a Russian invasion.
“We’re not going to send Ukraine a rocket system that can hit Russia,” Biden said in Washington DC AFPTuesday (31/5/2022).
Pro-Western Ukraine has received a lot of US military aid since Russia launched its military invasion in late February. However, Kiev authorities say its troops need long-range rockets equivalent to those used by Moscow’s troops.
The US has announced an additional $40 billion aid package for Ukraine. Ukraine is known to have asked the US to send mobile batteries for long-range rockets, the M270 MLRS and M142 Himars, which can launch multiple rockets at the same time with a range of up to 300 kilometers — eight times the range of artillery on the ground.
Such a rocket system would allow Ukrainian troops to attack with greater precision. Targets that are far behind Russian defense lines are also within reach. However, it is not yet clear whether that was Kiev’s intention.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the MLRS ‘a real weapon we really need’ at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week. In the forum, Kuleba encouraged Western allies to send heavy weapons.
Mykhailo Podolyak, who is an adviser to the President Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, also made a similar call via Twitter.
“It’s hard to fight back when you’re attacked from 70 kilometers away and have nothing to fight back,” he said.
Responding to Biden, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham assessed ‘the decision not to send these weapons is a betrayal of Ukraine and democracy itself’.
“Apparently, the Biden administration has once again been intimidated by Russian rhetoric,” Graham tweeted.
In a separate statement, a US official who asked not to be named said delivery of the MLRS rocket system was still under consideration, but without long-range strike capability.
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