Ukrainian crews reload a HIMARS launcher
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The news comes as a series of weapons hit the front lines of Ukraine’s defences, and are being used to wipe out Russian targets. The United States has promised Kyiv a total of eight units of the HIMARS, with at least four delivered and the rest to arrive soon.
Suggesting the HIMARS is the ultimate tool in defeating Russia, foreign policy and political commentator Paul Massaro said on Twitter: “The fastest way to end the war is more HIMARS for Ukraine.”
Ukraine has shown just how effective the use of the weapon is by releasing footage of the equipment in action, used in the Zaporizhzhya region of the country.
Although it was not clear what the Ukrainian defences were firing at, the same day, a large strike was reported on the airbase in the occupied city of Melitopol, some 50 miles away from the front line.
The strike was the latest in a barrage of high-precision attacks on Russian forces and assets in parts of eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian military bosses now hope the arrival and use of the HIMARS can hit Russia at the heart of its ammunition supply.
According to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Russia has been firing an estimated 20,000 rounds per day, (compared to 6,000 by Ukraine).
The reasoning suggests that although Ukraine cannot match Russia with weapons – even with Western supplies flowing in – Kyiv can target Russian ammo depots, which Moscow so-relies on in its continual bombardment of eastern Ukraine via heavy shelling.
Ukraine had claimed three more strikes on ammunition dumps in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions on Monday.
The chaos continued on Tuesday, with thick pillars of smoke rising over Donetsk, the regional capital occupied by Russia in 2014, as the Ukrainians targeted the railway station and a nearby vehicle repair workshop.
Deprived of the ability to lay down thousands of shells a day, the theory goes, Russia will be unable to replicate its grinding advance through the Luhansk and its assault on the Donetsk region will stall.
Jack Watling, a researcher from RUSI said: “It is a solid concept that should work as long as the Russians are not using precision-guided munitions because the way they are using artillery they cannot help but have ammunition dumps.
“We will see in the coming weeks if it works.”
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Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defence minister who has been involved in talks about arms procurement from the West, said: “It is an excellent piece of equipment.
“We can probe deep into the front. But the short answer is no, it is absolutely not enough. We need tens of them.
“If we had more, we would go after their equipment, their own artillery units, their own multiple rocket launches – and then we would be able to stop the offensive and secondly return the dynamic and start to move them out. That was the idea.
“Unfortunately at the moment, it is completely unclear when most of that stuff is coming and it is unclear what we are going to get.”
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Western nations have been relentless in supplying Ukraine with a series of weapons, however, huge logistical challenges make the continuous delivery a hard task.
Furthermore, any new equipment delivered to Ukraine requires extensive training and guidance on how to best use the weapons, making delivery half of the problem.
Delays caused by a combination of logistical challenges and Western governments trying to balance Ukraine’s requests against fears of provoking further escalation from Russia, have undoubtedly cost lives and allowed the Russians to take Lysychansk.
But perhaps more concerning are the vulnerabilities revealed at the heart of Western military planning.
Few Nato members actually had much to give, in either ammunition or weaponry, and discussions are now underway for a “very serious” expansion of industrial military production as demonstrated by alliance members pledging more money towards defence on the back end of the summit in Madrid.
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