Ukraine’s defense minister is confident West will provide Ukraine with long-range missiles for HIMARS

The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov, is confident that Western partners will provide Ukraine with rockets for the HIMARS missile systems, which are capable of hitting targets at a distance of 300 kilometers; he described them as a game-changer in the war.

Reznikov said this in an interview with the Financial Times.

"I think it's a step-by-step movement. We give them [western partners, ed.] proof that we can use it with precision and sophistication, and we get more, and longer range," Reznikov noted.

The minister praised the HIMARS systems for their accuracy and range, which are better than Ukraine's old Soviet-era artillery, and noted that they helped reduce the number of losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbas, which reached an average of 100 a day in May.

The minister says more missiles and artillery are needed for any counteroffensive attempt by Ukrainian troops to push back russian forces, adding:

"By the end of this year, there will be a serious change in the battlefield in Ukraine's favor. II hope we will see the counteroffensive campaign this year and [that] it will be successful," Reznikov noted.

Reference 

Ukraine has used HIMARS in the last three weeks to target russian ammunition depots behind the frontline. The US had been hesitant to send HIMARs, which have an 80km range and GPS-guided munitions. Their concern was that this would escalate the war. 

On June 1, US President Joe Biden announced the provision of a new security aid package to Ukraine, which includes highly mobile HIMARS missile and artillery systems.

These HIMARS are equipped with missiles capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 80 km, but potentially the systems can strike at a distance of 300 km.

At the beginning of July, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksii Danilov, said that Ukraine received 9 HIMARS missile systems and similar systems from the US and its allies. Still, it needs dozens more for a counteroffensive.

Read Rubryka's daily timeline of war: current news on Ukraine's defense against russia's aggression.