As the Russian army is believed to be taking an “operational pause” in eastern Ukraine, ahead of a reorganized assault on Donetsk Oblast, reports suggest that the Russian military is spooked at how effective U.S.-supplied HIMARS are proving.
Speaking to Newsweek, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said that the M142 High Mobility Artillery rocket Systems, built in the United States and supplied by the United States, are destroying Russian positions and helping Ukraine push back.
Haidai even said that the Russians were in “panic mode” as the longer-ready guided missile systems allow Ukrainian troops to more precisely strike Russian logistics hubs and military positions from a distance.
“As the whole world has seen over the past week or so, we have been able to inflict massive damage to their missile defense systems and ammunition storage facilities deep behind the enemy lines,” the Donetsk governor said, adding that it was only achieved “largely down to the variety of weapons” they had received from the West.
Haidai also echoed calls by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for more ammunition and weapons from the west.
“And when we have sufficient amounts of such weaponry, we will be able to carry out further counterattacks,” the governor said.
HIMARS Goes to War in Ukraine
The United States provided three new HIMARS on July 8 and promised an additional four – and so far, the Ukrainians have already put them to good use.
On July 11, Ukraine destroyed a Russian ammunition depot located in Nova Kakhovka using the HIMARS. The depot was located in southern Ukraine, just north of Crimea, and was just one of several recent blows to the Russian military’s ammunition and weapon supply hubs.
The Economist reports how Ukrainian commanders are delighted with the new weapons, saying that they are “tilting the war” back in Ukraine’s favor following the losses of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk – two major cities in the Donbas region that Russia is working to “liberate.”
So effective are the HIMARS that some analysts even suggest sending more of them to Ukraine in the hope that they may more quickly bring the war to a close.
Russian-American opinion writer Max Boot said in a recent opinion piece for The Washington Post that the United States should send 60 HIMARS to “shorten the war.”
“The Biden administration just pledged four more in addition to nine others promised by allies,” Boot writes.
“But Ukrainian officials are asking for many more HIMARS and would like to see them equipped with longer-range rockets. Michael G. Vickers, a former undersecretary of defense who helped mastermind the 1980s war against the Red Army in Afghanistan, recently suggested that Ukraine needs 60 to 100 HIMARS or other multiple-launch rocket systems to win the artillery duel.”
While the move could certainly help bring the war to a close much quicker, there is also no telling how Russia would respond to such a clear escalation in the conflict by the United States – a move that the Kremlin has repeatedly warned would bring about “unpredictable consequences”
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
