Live Updates: U.S. to Send Ukraine Most Powerful Weapons Since Start of War

 

Live Updates: U.S. to Send Ukraine Most Powerful Weapons Since Start of War

 

A U.S. official said leaders in Kyiv promised not to fire the long-range rockets at targets inside Russia. Moscow’s forces appeared to close in on seizing Sievierodonetsk.

 

Victoria Kim and Ron DePasquale

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/01/world/russia-ukraine-war-news

 

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine.

The United States is sending advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, the most significant weapons that President Biden has sent since the start of the war, fulfilling a longstanding demand from the Ukrainians and appearing to dismiss concerns that it would be seen by Russia as a provocation.

 

Mr. Biden said in a guest essay in The New York Times that the latest aid would help Ukraine “fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.” President Volodymyr Zelenksy has swung between praising and chastising allies for their support, arguing that the weapons sent at the start of the war were not sufficient, and urging them to send longer-range and more powerful weapons to fend off Russian forces.

 

The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, a weapon that can fire satellite-guided rockets, will enable Ukraine to lob attacks well beyond the range of its current artillery. Even so, Mr. Biden and other administration officials emphasized that they were providing them to Ukraine to defend its own territory, not to attack Russia, and that they had decided against outfitting the system with longer-range rockets capable of flying 200 miles.

 

“We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia. As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow,” Mr. Biden wrote. “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders.”

 

European leaders earlier this week pledged $9.7 billion in financial aid to Ukraine, albeit with demands, in a two-day summit in Brussels.

 

The boost in Ukraine’s firepower would come too late for Sievierodonetsk, which had been the easternmost city under Ukrainian control. The head of Ukraine’s regional military administration, Serhiy Haidai, said late Tuesday that Russian troops had taken over most of the city. About 12,000 civilians, out of a prewar population of about 100,000, remain in the city, according to an aid group.

 

In other developments:

 

• The Russian military, in its push to capture eastern Ukraine, is repeating the mistakes it made during its failed attempt to capture the entire country, senior American officials say.
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• Top Biden administration officials are warning against international calls to seize Russian central bank assets and use them to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction, saying such a step could be illegal and discourage investment in the United States.
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• Russia is blocking the shipment of 22 million tons of grain in Ukraine, bombarding houses where wheat is stored and mining crop fields, said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
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• A court in central Ukraine sentenced two Russian soldiers to 11 and a half years in prison for shelling a town in the country’s northeast during the war, the second guilty verdict handed down by Ukrainian courts for war crimes since the start of the invasion.