Russia claimed on Tuesday to have shot down a long-range American rocket GLSDB, the first confirmation of delivery of this ammunition to Ukraine, which considers it crucial to launch its next counter-offensive.
Ukraine has not provided any information on the deployment of these devices.
The Russian announcement also comes the day after the confirmation of the delivery of British, American and German armored vehicles, key vehicles, according to kyiv, to achieve its ambitions of military reconquest.
“Air Defense […] shot down 18 HIMARS rockets and one GLSDB guided rocket,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily statement about these guided bombs with a range of up to 150 km, promised to Kiev by the United States. United in early February.
The GLSDB (for “Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb”) are small-diameter, high-precision devices manufactured by the American Boeing and the Swedish Saab.
They can fly up to 150 km and therefore threaten Russian positions, in particular ammunition depots, far behind the front lines.
“The accuracy of GLSDBs is so high that they can hit the radius of a car tire,” Saab claims on its site.
Initial reluctance
Ukraine has insisted on needing such ammunition to destroy Russian supply lines and thus overcome its manpower and ammunition deficit in preparation for its announced counter-offensive to push back the forces of Moscow which occupy a large part of the south and eastern Ukraine.
The delivery in June 2022 to the Ukrainian army of HIMARS high-precision mobile rocket launcher systems with ammunition with a range of some 80 km had enabled Ukraine to ravage the rear of the Russian army.
This had allowed the counter-offensives that led to the reconquest of large territories in the south and north-east of the country between September and November.
To respond to the HIMARS threat, the Russian forces have extended their supply lines, in particular moving their ammunition stocks away from the front.
Westerners had been reluctant to provide longer-range systems, fearing they could be used to strike Russian territory and cause an escalation.
kyiv has, for its part, repeatedly promised that these weapons would only be used to attack targets in occupied territory.
Faced with the massive strike campaigns launched in recent months on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure — Kiev announced again on Tuesday that it had been targeted by 12 Iranian-made explosive drones, all intercepted — the United States finally announced on February 3 that it would provide from GLSDBs to Ukraine.
But the delivery schedule had not been announced, with some sources estimating several months were needed.
Waiting for more tanks
Besides these rockets, Ukraine has hammered throughout the winter that it needs hundreds of modern tanks and armor to be able to inflict a military defeat on Russia. Westerners have promised, but their number so far seems to be below Ukrainian expectations.
British Challenger battle tanks, American Stryker and Cougar armored vehicles and German Marder armored vehicles have been delivered to Ukraine, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov announced on Monday.
The latter indicated on Tuesday that the Challengers would “soon begin their combat mission”.
For the Kremlin, Western arms supplies are proof that Europeans and Americans are waging a proxy war against Russia, thus justifying its inability to defeat its neighbor militarily.
In response, Russia announced that it would deploy tactical nuclear weapons to its only ally in Europe, Belarus, a neighbor of Ukraine which lent its territory to the Russian invasion without taking an active part in it.
Minsk confirmed on Tuesday that it had given its agreement, while stressing that the Belarusian army would not have control of these weapons, the deployment of which “does not in any way contradict Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”, according to a statement from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.
“Using the Enemy”
Since the launch of its assault on February 24, 2022, Russia has successively had to retreat from northern Ukraine and the capital Kiev (March 2022), then from the northeast (September 2022) and finally from Kherson in the south.
The Russian army and the paramilitary group Wagner have since concentrated their offensive in the east, particularly in Bakhmout and Avdiivka, gaining ground, but so far failing to conquer these towns despite heavy losses and destruction.
Ukraine hopes that, armed with Western armaments and inflicting sufficient losses on Russian forces, it will be able to launch a decisive counter-offensive in the spring or summer.
“Our primary objective is to wear out the enemy’s superior forces (in numbers) and inflict heavy losses on them,” Ukrainian ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrsky said on Telegram.
“This will create the necessary conditions for the liberation of Ukrainian lands and accelerate our victory,” he added.
For his part, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, visited arms factories in the Russian regions of Chelyabinsk and Kirov which produce tank and artillery ammunition, while on the front of the units, notably the Wagner group, regularly complained of running out of shells.
According to a press release from the ministry, the factories plan to increase their production “by 7 to 8 times” by the end of the year.