US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his country will provide a new $275 million military aid package for Ukraine to help the beleaguered country repel Russia’s assault on Kharkiv.
His announcement came while US media reports highlighted the Ukrainian ongoing shortages of artillery ammunition and air defense interceptors against Russia’s offensive since May 10.
According to Blinken, the new package includes ammunition for HIMARS, 155 mm and 105 mm artillery rounds, missiles, anti-armor systems and precision aerial munitions.
“Assistance from previous packages has already made it to the front lines, and we will move this new assistance as quickly as possible so the Ukrainian military can use it to defend their territory and protect the Ukrainian people,” the State Department said.
Although the new package is an urgent response to Kyiv's needs, several reports have suggested that Russia's recent advances on the battlefronts, both in Kharkiv and the Donetsk region, are due to its success in using new jamming techniques to cut off Ukraine's access to the Starlink satellite Internet network and the ability of its forces to use advanced Western weapons.
Many US-made satellite-guided munitions in Ukraine have failed to withstand Russian jamming technology, prompting Kyiv to stop using certain types of Western-provided armaments after effectiveness rates plummeted, according to senior Ukrainian military officials and confidential internal Ukrainian assessments obtained by The Washington Post.
It said this development has far-reaching implications for Ukraine and its Western allies, potentially providing a blueprint for adversaries such as China and Iran. It is a key factor in Moscow’s forces regaining the initiative and advancing on the battlefield.
The documents obtained by the Post also reveal that the success rate for the US-designed Excalibur shells, for example, fell sharply over a period of months — to less than 10 percent hitting their targets — before Ukraine’s military abandoned them last year.
Russia’s jamming tactics have compromised Ukraine’s ability to defend its territory, as it has failed to use high-tech Western weapons, such as the Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells and the of High Mobility Artillery Rockets (HIMARS), forcing Ukrainian officials to request improvements from the Pentagon and arms manufacturers urgently, the Post said.
Russia “has continued to expand their use of electronic warfare,” a senior US official, who was not named, told the Post. “And we continue to evolve and make sure that Ukraine has the capabilities they need to be effective.”
In addition to the jamming difficulties, the Ukrainian army has been barred to use long-range missiles to Russian territories near the border.
The United States and other Western allies have permitted only the firing of Western weapons into Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine, not into Russia itself, for fear of escalating the war.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Ukraine hit a Russian military complex in Crimea with US-provided long-range missiles Thursday night.
The missile strike hit a communications center of Russian air-defense forces in the city of Alushta, according to a Ukrainian defense official.
In return, the Russian air defenses have downed three ATACMS missiles over the Crimean Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement published by TASS.
On Friday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces have secured “combat control” of areas where Russian troops entered the northeastern Kharkiv region earlier this month.
“Our soldiers have now managed to take combat control of the border area where the Russian occupiers entered,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Friday evening.
Also, Ihor Prokhorenko, a representative of the Main Operational Directorate of Ukraine's General Staff, said at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday that Ukrainian forces halted Russian troops in the Kharkiv sector and are conducting counterattacks.
Prokhorenko described the situation on the battlefield as “difficult,” saying Ukrainian soldiers continue to hold the line in the country's east and south.
