Ukraine declared on Monday that its forces have used rocket systems HIMARS supplied by the United States for destroy 50 Russian ammunition depots since receiving the weapons last month.
Speaking on national television, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov underlined the growing impact that High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) are having as Ukraine tries to repel the Russian invasion.
“This cuts off their (Russian) logistics chains and deprives them of the ability to conduct active combat and cover our military with heavy bombardment.Reznikov said.
Reznikov said that the Ukrainian artillery crews had carried out “precise” attacks on various bridges. He did not give details, but apparently he was referring to three river crossings in the Kherson regionoccupied by Russia, which according to the local occupation authorities were attacked by HIMARS during the past week.
Reznikov also said that Ukraine had received three Gepard armored anti-aircraft combat vehicles, the first of 15 plannedand that kyiv expected receive several dozen Leopard tanks.
For its part, Russia claims to have destroyed several of the HIMARS systems, although Ukraine has denied this. In the latest such report, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that its forces had destroyed an ammunition depot for HIMARS systems in the Khmelnytskyi region of western Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that Western arms supplies critical to Ukraine’s military effort, and stressed the importance of the HIMARS due to the supremacy of the Russian artillery in terms of numbers and ammunition. Read more
HIMARS have a longer range and are more accurate than the Soviet-era artillery Ukraine had in its arsenal.
The Kremlin has criticized the United States in particular for providing Ukraine with instructors to help Ukrainian forces use HIMARS.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, has captured a piece of territory in southern Ukraine and used its artillery supremacy in the east to make incremental territorial gains.
(With information from Reuters)
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Source-www.infobae.com