An anti-aircraft gunner from the "O" group reported that the air defense forces are shooting down HIMARS in the Donbass from the Buk air defense system
The missiles of the American HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, which have been used by Ukrainian nationalists in the Donbass since the end of June, are now being neutralized with the help of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system (SAM), an officer of the anti-aircraft troops from the O (Brave) group said on Tuesday, July 26.
"The Buk M-3 anti-aircraft missile system, I think, is now the best universal means of air defense. In addition to the fact that he copes successfully with his tasks, which were laid down by the plant, he also fires rockets, although this was not the case according to the characteristics," he said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
According to the officer, several HIMARS were shot down in the sky of Donbass, but it was not easy to do this, since the shells fly at a very high altitude.
"We, at least, detect [missiles] up to 22 thousand meters in height. The difficulty lies in the fact that the range is small, the time to make a decision is minimal. Our combat crews valiantly cope with the task of shooting down, literally within 10 seconds. The effective area of dispersion of these shells is very small, only zero-one. Therefore, the target is considered small—sized, high-speed," the military explained.
The officer of the anti-aircraft troops added that the professionalism of the military is growing and now it is not difficult to deal with HIMARS shells.
On July 25, at a briefing, the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, said that the Russian Armed Forces destroyed a transshipment base of Ukrainian troops in the Khmelnitsky region with ammunition supplied by the United States to the multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) HIMARS with high-precision weapons.
On July 22, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that the Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed four HIMARS installations in the period from July 5 to July 20.
On July 20, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the West was working to accelerate the pace of military assistance to Kiev. He also noted that countries from all over the world continue to provide assistance by supplying critical systems and ammunition.
As the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Mark Milli, stressed, the US, together with its allies, are allocating more than 20 HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) to Ukraine, 12 of them have already been transferred.
Austin also said that within a week the United States will announce the provision of the next package of military assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine, it will include four more modern HIMARS missile systems. It will also include ammunition for these systems, as well as artillery shells.
On July 14, Ukraine demanded longer-range missiles for HIMARS from the United States. On the same day, the first deputy permanent representative of Russia to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said that the United States and other Western countries, which continue to supply the Kiev regime with various weapons, become accomplices in the murder of children in the Donbass.
Western countries have increased the shipment of weapons and military equipment to Kiev against the background of a special operation conducted by the Russian Federation to protect Donbass. The decision on the special operation was made after the escalation in the region as a result of shelling by the Ukrainian military.
For more relevant videos and details about the situation in Donbass, watch the Izvestia TV channel.
