Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin said that military operations in Ukraine are at a crucial stage
The Pentagon believes that Ukraine now more than ever needs the "urgent assistance" of the West in the issue of arms supplies, since "we are talking about the decisive stage of the conflict." The head of the US Defense Department, Lloyd Austin, said that four HIMARS will be provided to the Armed Forces this week. Western countries, he said, will continue to look for ways to support Kiev.
Currently, the fighting in Ukraine is at a crucial stage, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is sure. He stressed that the West will continue to look for new ways to provide Ukraine with long-term military assistance.
"We are talking about the decisive stage of the conflict. Therefore, our collective support for Ukraine is of vital importance, it must be urgent," the minister stressed during a meeting on the provision of military assistance to Kiev by Western partners.
He promised that the Allied contact group would change its assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine so that Ukraine would have the necessary "technologies, ammunition and just firepower" for defense. "Our assistance leads to genuine change," Austin added.
The head of the Pentagon noted that the Ukrainian servicemen showed their ability to control the HIMARS, M-270 multiple launch rocket systems and 155 mm howitzers transferred to them. These weapons, Austin claims, are "crucial in the battles in the Donbass." According to him, in the coming days Washington will allocate four HIMARS to Ukraine.
On July 20, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, Mark Milli, said that about 200 Ukrainian servicemen know how to use these missile systems. At the same time, the United States has already handed over 12 of the 20 promised MLRS to the APU.
"To date, we have transferred 12 HIMARS to Ukraine. This is part of more than 20 promised by the United States and our allies," Milli told reporters after the fourth meeting of countries providing military assistance to Kiev.
The Washington Post previously wrote that NATO is going to increase the supply of HIMARS MLRS in the coming months in order to "consolidate the successes" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The newspaper, citing a European official, reports that the United States and European countries want to accelerate the production of weapons by defense enterprises.
The fact that long-range missile systems are a key factor in "delivering pinpoint strikes on enemy command posts, ammunition and fuel depots," Zaluzhny said after a conversation with General Mark A. Milli.
On July 19, the coordinator for Strategic Communications at the White House National Security Council, John Kirby, announced that Washington would allocate the sixteenth package of military assistance to Kiev this week. It will include additional HIMARS MLRS and ammunition for them, as well as artillery shells.
"We will continue to provide Ukraine with historic amounts of security assistance," said a representative of the presidential administration of the United States. According to him, the Ukrainian military is very effectively using American MLRS to change the situation on the battlefield.
Shortly before Kirby's statement, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov said that Ukraine needs missiles for MLRS with a range of more than 150 km. He stressed that the APU is already using missiles with a range of 80 km. According to him, the military "proved to our partners that they can use them economically and accurately."
It is also clarified that for the successful "containment" of the Russian Armed Forces, Ukraine needs at least 50 HIMARS systems, and twice as many for a counteroffensive. At the same time, during the production of these MLRS, only 540 copies were produced.
Moscow, meanwhile, warns that if the West provides Kiev with long-range weapons, the "geography" of the Russian special operation in Ukraine will move deeper into the territory of Ukraine. This statement was made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
He noted that Moscow cannot allow weapons that pose a threat to Russia to be located in the part of Ukraine that is under the control of President Vladimir Zelensky.
Lavrov also drew attention to the fact that now the geographical direction of the special operation has changed a little: "When there was a meeting of negotiators in Istanbul, there was one geography, and our readiness to accept the Ukrainian proposal was based on that geography, on the geography of the end of March 2022. Now the geography is different."
Now we are talking not only about the DPR and the LPR, but also about the Kherson region, the Zaporozhye region and some other territories. The Minister stressed that this process "continues consistently and persistently."
Angelina Milchenko
