DM Monitoring
MOSCOW: The Russian defence ministry has claimed its forces have destroyed two US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missile launchers in the embattled Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
The ministry said on Wednesday that Russian forces also destroyed two ammunition depots storing rockets for the highly-advanced HIMARS near the front line in a village south of Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region – the main focus of Moscow’s military offensive following the capture of the Luhansk region during the weekend.
“Near the village of Malotaranovi in the Donetsk People’s Republic, two launchers of the US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher and two associated ammunition depots were destroyed by air-launched high-precision missiles,” Russian defence ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said.
Konashenkov also said that a radar station for a Ukrainian-operated S-300 air-defence system along with a camp housing “foreign mercenary units” was also destroyed in the Limany area in the Mykolaiv region.
The ministry released video footage which it said showed the strike. Media could not independently verify the ministry’s claims.
Ukraine’s general staff rejected Russia’s account later Wednesday. In a post on Twitter, it said the claims were “fake” and that it was using the US-supplied HIMARS to inflict “devastating blows” on Russian forces.
Ukraine had received only four HIMARS systems from the US as of early July, the European Council on Foreign Relations said in a report. Washington had pledged to deliver eight of the missile systems by mid-July.
Western weapon supplies have been crucial to Ukraine’s efforts to push back the tens of thousands of Russian troops that Moscow sent into Ukraine on February 24 in what it calls a “special military operation”.
Twenty-five of the 28 nations providing military assistance to Ukraine are NATO members, including the US and UK, which are supplying Kyiv with sophisticated weapons such as multiple rocket launch systems (MLRS).
The military aid sent to Ukraine also includes conventional weapons, as well as more advanced equipment and weaponry.
Yet, despite its growing arsenal, Ukraine, which has just 200,000 active military personnel, remains significantly outgunned by Russian forces.
Ukraine has said that Russia has been using inaccurate Soviet-era missiles to hit military and critical infrastructure, killing many civilians in raids, a charge Moscow has denied.
Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has criticised France for the publication of a call between the presidents of the two countries that took place days before the start of the war in Ukraine.
Broadcaster France 2 released in a documentary that aired last week the details of the confidential call on February 20 between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
In the exchange, which finds Putin preparing for an ice hockey game, the Russian leader describes the 2014 Maidan protests that brought pro-Western leaders to power in Ukraine as a “bloody coup”. He also accuses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of refusing to engage in dialogue with pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s east.
“People were burned alive, it was a bloodbath,” Putin says, claiming that Zelenskyy is lying to Macron.
At one point, Macron is visibly irritated and tells Putin in a slightly raised voice: “I don’t know where your lawyer learned law,” as he criticises Russian views.
Despite the differences, Putin in principle agrees to a meeting with United States President Joe Biden in Geneva, which never materialised as Russia sent its troops into Ukraine four days later.
Commenting on the broadcasting of the conversation, Lavrov said on Wednesday “diplomatic etiquette does not provide for unilateral leaks of such recordings”.
He added that that Russia has nothing to be ashamed of.
“We, in principle, lead negotiations in such a way that we never have anything to be ashamed of. We always say what we think and are ready to answer for these words and explain our position,” he said during a trip to Vietnam.
The documentary also offers scenes rarely seen in public, including Macron holding a meeting in his bunker under the Elysee palace and working with his team in the presidential plane.
It also highlights European leaders’ coordination to support Ukraine and impose unprecedented sanctions on Russia and follows Macron with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi in a train on their way to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in June, where they pledged arms and backed Ukraine’s candidacy to join the European Union.
