Ukrainian presidential advisor and peace talks negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak has named three components which he says will turn the tide of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, as clashes intensify in the battle for the country’s eastern Donbas region.
Podolyak said on Twitter that Ukraine needs three types of weapons to help bring an end to the war, which was launched by Putin on February 24.
“Do we want a turning point in the war? 3 components… HIMARS for high-precision targeting rear bases, logistics,” he tweeted on Saturday. “Heavy artillery on the frontline allows matching number parity. APC [armored personnel carriers] for “breakthrough fists”… More tools faster we’ll clean our land of the Russians.”
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His remarks came shortly after President Joe Biden signed a new $400 million weapons package for Ukraine, including four additional high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS).
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the new HIMARS key precision rocket weapon system provided by Washington would bring Kyiv’s total number to 12.
The official said that with the help of these systems, Ukraine has been “successfully striking Russian locations in Ukraine, deeper behind the front lines and disrupting Russia’s ability to conduct that artillery operation.”
The U.S. began to supply Ukraine with the system in June, after Ukraine said it would not use HIMARS to attack Russian territory.
Podolyak said last month that Ukraine needed 1,000 howitzers caliber 155 mm, 300 MLRS (M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System), 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles, and 1,000 drones, to bring the war to an end.
The advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with France 24 in June, also linked the end of the war to supplies of weapons from the West.
“It’s impossible to say this in a few words but we have a consensus in Ukraine on this issue,” Podolyak said. “If we receive heavy weapons fairly quickly, the war shouldn’t take more than another three or six months, and if all conditions are met we hope to take back our territories.
“If it turns out this way, Russia will no longer be in a position to threaten Europe and be disruptive.
“We hope that Ukraine will receive the necessary support to hold its own against Russia,” he added. “In order to properly end this war, we need those heavy armament supplies from our partners, and we need a Russian military defeat in the west and the south.”
It comes as Russia continues its offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, which comprises the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Putin’s forces are ramping up attacks on the Donetsk region, after Russia claimed to have seized Luhansk last weekend.
The governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said Saturday that Russian troops are managing to “raise true hell” as they approached the border with the Donetsk region.
Russian forces struck an apartment block in Chasiv Yar, a town near the city of Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region, killing at least 15 people and trapping about 20 more under rubble, Ukrainian officials said Sunday.
Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Foreign Ministry for comment.
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