US weapons are putting pressure on Moscow’s troops

by time news

Kyiv/Berlin/Moscow For days now, the Ukrainian soldiers have been firing the Himars multiple rocket launchers, which they received from the USA, at full steam. In the east and south of their country now under Russian control, they blow up weapons and ammunition depots and fuel depots.

They proudly show videos of targets going up in flames in the Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson regions. Images that, after almost five months of war, are intended to raise combat morale despite massive losses in their own ranks.

President Volodymyr Zelensky also praised the heavy weapons supplied by the West as effective. And he demands more of it – and also rockets with a longer range: instead of 70 up to 300 kilometers. Zelensky keeps announcing an offensive to take back lost territories and stop the Russian advance. But despite the selectively successful strikes against logistics, which is considered a weak point of the Russian armed forces, even Ukrainian experts see no breakthrough.

According to the Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov, the destruction of ammunition and fuel depots near the front will have a mainly short-term effect. “This reduces the combat activity of the Russian units very drastically,” he says on Ukrainian television. “It makes it easier for us to defend. And we get the opportunity to counterattack at individual sections. No matter how hard Russia tries, we are forcing the character of warfare on them.”

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This means that the Russian plan for the “Battle of Donbass” has been torpedoed, says Zhdanov. Instead of a quick march through and encircling the Ukrainian troops, they only managed a few kilometers – with great losses.

Russia uses rockets like in Soviet times

The shelling by Russian artillery has decreased. Zhdanov says Russia’s air defenses don’t stand a chance against the Himar missiles. The attackers use rockets of Soviet design, which repeatedly miss their targets due to the lack of modern navigation systems.

Russian media critical of the Kremlin also report that Moscow barely had time to celebrate the recent conquest of the Luhansk region. Russia has an advantage through its artillery and ammunition stocks. According to an analysis by the Meduza portal, the US Himar system, with its rockets precisely placed by GPS, is dealing serious blows to the Russian units.

Ukrainian soldiers in Donbass

Heavy fighting is currently raging in the region of eastern Ukraine.

(Foto: Getty Images)

Russia must now reorient the supply of arms, ammunition and fuel to its troops in the Donbass and Kharkiv regions in the east and in the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in the south. It is not clear whether this will succeed without a major mobilization. There are now more and more initiatives by Russian provincial authorities to recruit volunteers for the war.

The Himar system threatens the security of the “Luhansk People’s Republic,” admitted Leonid Passechnik this week. He is the head of the region recognized by Russia as a state. “Fortunately they don’t have many such weapons. So there is no need to panic at all.”

But Ukraine is hoping for more such and other weapons from the West. The Panzerhaubitze 2000 is now also at the front. So far, Germany has delivered seven of the artillery weapons, the Netherlands five – and together both countries want to increase the number to a total of 18 howitzers, enough for a complete Ukrainian artillery battalion. The soldiers trained for this in Germany are now in action, the German Press Agency explains.

Howitzer 2000

Germany is reluctant to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine.

(Photo: Reuters)

At the same time, and without publicity, Ukrainians are being trained in Germany on the Mars II rocket launcher, the next weapon system to be made available from Germany. The war technology should enable the Ukrainians to hit accurately even at greater distances and to oppose the fundamental Russian superiority. It remains to be seen whether the use of western weapons can also be used to push back Russian troops.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced further arms deliveries to Ukraine as part of the so-called ring swap for the coming weeks. The federal government has specified agreements with several countries “to the extent that they will be directly linked to extradition,” said the SPD politician in the Bundestag.

On the other hand, Berlin is hesitant to hand over further weapon systems from the Bundeswehr stocks. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht has rejected a delivery of Fuchs armored personnel carriers – because of Germany’s ability to defend itself. It was “irresponsible to want to plunder the Bundeswehr, especially in these times”.

More articles on the war in Ukraine

According to military experts, disrupting Russian logistics could create the conditions for a Ukrainian counter-offensive. But for now, the initiative still lies with the Russian troops, which are slowly advancing in the Donetsk region – now on the line between the cities of Siversk, Soledar and Bakhmut.

Hopes for an early reconquest of Cherson and the south, which was lost in the first days of the war, are also slim. Even the state Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, which was created for counter-propaganda, was fed up with Kiev’s constant reports of allegedly ongoing offensives.

In fact, there are only three liberated villages: Tavriyske, 30 kilometers west of Kherson, and Potemkyne and Ivanivka, more than 100 kilometers northeast of the regional capital. The governorate has a total of more than 650 settlements.

More: Kyiv announces counteroffensive – The war of attrition continues

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