{"id":254558,"date":"2022-06-07T06:03:26","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T06:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=254558"},"modified":"2022-06-09T06:36:56","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T06:36:56","slug":"uk-to-send-long-range-rocket-artillery-to-ukraine-despite-russian-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=254558","title":{"rendered":"UK to send long-range rocket artillery to Ukraine despite Russian threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Sabbagh \u2013 The Guardian June 6, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Britain is to supply long-range rocket artillery to Ukraine, despite a threat on Sunday from Russia\u2019s president, Vladimir Putin<\/a>, to bomb fresh targets if similar weapons from the US were delivered to Kyiv.<\/p>\n

The UK will send a handful of tracked M270 multiple launch rocket systems (pictured above), which can hit targets up to 50 miles away, in the hope they can disrupt the concentrated Russian artillery that has been pounding cities in eastern Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, argued the decision to ship the rocket launchers was justified because \u201cas Russia\u2019s tactics change, so must our support to Ukraine\u201d. The move risks further provoking an already irritated Kremlin.<\/p>\n

Before the British announcement, Putin told Rossiya state television that Russia<\/a> would retaliate further if the US went through with the delivery of Himars rocket artillery that the White House promised last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting,\u201d said the Russian leader, who has been closely involved with operational military decisions throughout the three months-plus of the war. He did not specify what those targets were.<\/p>\n

In the small hours of Sunday morning, Russian cruise missiles struck a railway depot<\/a> in the eastern Dniprovsky suburb of Kyiv. Ukraine said the strike hit a rail car repair works; Moscow said it had destroyed tanks sent by eastern European countries to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

It was the first time anywhere in the capital has been hit for over five weeks. One person was hospitalised, and a plume of smoke rose and was visible from high points in the capital.<\/p>\n

Five cruise missiles were launched from Tu-95 bombers, one of which was intercepted, Ukraine\u2019s air force said, in an attack that represented a change of approach on the part of Russian forces. Kyiv was last hit on 28 April.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s ministry of defence claimed it was targeting an arsenal of T-72 tanks that had been delivered from eastern European countries, suggesting it now wants to target the supply of western arms. But Ukrainian officials said the statement was false.<\/p>\n

Oleksandr Kamyshin, the chairman of the board of Ukrainian Railways, said: \u201cThere are no such tanks at the plant, as well as no military equipment. There are only cars that we repair. These carriages we need for export \u2013 these are, in particular, grain carriages.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UK, in conjunction with the US and other western nations, began the war by promising only to supply \u201cdefensive weaponry\u201d to help Ukraine repel the Russian invasion. But as Russia has made gains in the east and the south of the country, western countries have gradually sent more lethal arms.<\/p>\n

London said it had been cooperating closely with Washington. The British announcement comes a few days after the US said it would send four similar truck-mounted Himars systems. The US and UK systems are intended to be complementary. The ranges of both are far greater than any land weapons Ukraine currently has.<\/p>\n

Like the US, the UK has sought assurances from Kyiv that the M270s would not be used to strike targets within Russia. A British defence source said the weapons will be used \u201cto defend Ukraine, in Ukraine\u201d. They added: \u201cWe have confidence that the weapons will be used appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The West obviously wants a wider conflict in Ukraine. First the U.S. pledged to supply Ukraine with longer-range weapons, despite Russian protests. Now the UK has promised to supply M270 multiple-launch rocket systems, which has a range of over 50 miles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=254558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254559,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254558\/revisions\/254559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=254558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=254558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=254558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}