The United States and its allies may supply Ukraine with 25-30 HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems and their analogues. About this in interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Adam Smith, chairman of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said.
He, along with a number of other members of Congress, visited Kyiv and met on Saturday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, confirmed that it was about the supply of weapons, including MLRS.
“We are ready to give Ukraine as many HIMARS installations as we can,” Smith emphasized. He noted that the delivery of, for example, 50 such units is hardly possible, but the number of 25-30 is quite realistic. According to the congressman, we are talking about American installations, as well as similar MLRS systems from the UK and other NATO countries.
Earlier, Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov said that Ukraine needs 50 such installations for defense, and 100 for offensive purposes. Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the presidential office, also shares this assessment.
At the moment, the United States has already supplied Ukraine with 12 HIMARS rocket systems and promised to deliver 4 more. Several MLRS have also been delivered.
Using HIMARS, in recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has carried out a number of strikes on the rear of Russian troops. According to US estimates, Ukraine has destroyed more than 100 “high-value” Russian targets in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian troops. At the same time, no strikes were made on the territory of Russia. The Pentagon subsequently clarified that Ukraine was being transferred HIMARS ammunition with a range of up to 80 km, and not missiles capable of hitting targets at a distance of 300 km.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that the Russian military destroyed 3 out of 12 delivered HIMARS installations. The Ukrainian military did not acknowledge the loss of a single one, there is no independent evidence of the destruction of at least one MLRS.