Ukraine received four more HIMARS multiple rocket launchers from the United States. This was announced by Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov. “We have proven that we can handle these weapons. The sound of the HIMARS salvo was a hit this summer on the front lines,” he wrote on Twitter.
In total, 20 HIMARS systems have already been delivered to Ukraine, as well as three M270 MLRS launchers and three Mars II rocket launchers. Artillery now plays a key role in the development of events in Ukraine. The operational situation is determined by the power of fire weapons, the ability to concentrate artillery strikes on narrow sectors of the front (for the RF Armed Forces) and, accordingly, the ability to counter such attempts or prevent them in a timely manner (for the Armed Forces of Ukraine).
Deliveries of Western weapons to Ukraine continue, however, modern Western systems – and not Soviet or created in the Warsaw Bloc countries – are still critically few at the disposal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The most massively used type of Western artillery by the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the M777 howitzers (aka “three axes”) with a firing range of 24–30 km.
Ukraine also successfully used the French CAESARs – it was they who, most likely, helped the Armed Forces of Ukraine to drive the Russian garrison from the Zmeiny Island. Later, Russian propaganda repeatedly threw in information about the loss and even sale of howitzers by Ukrainian military personnel. Read more about what weapons Ukraine has already received and how successfully it is being used in The Insider.