EASTERN UKRAINE — The top weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal drove down an unmarked dirt road across a sunflower field before its military guards parked it among trees — the branches shielding it from Russian drones that no doubt they hunt The M142 high-mobility artillery rocket system, commonly known as HIMARS, is one of four the Ukrainians received last month from the United States as part of a $700 million military aid package. The soldiers assigned to it were already decorating the interior with a picture of a scantily clad woman, an air freshener and rosaries. The outside has three small black stenciled skulls — one for each target successfully hit. “We actually have six,” said the head of that system, whose call sign is Kuzya. “We just haven’t had a chance to add the other three yet.” After public frustration over Western delays in delivering promised heavy weaponry, especially multiple launch missile systems like HIMARS, the Ukrainians quickly put their new hardware into service more than four months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Kuzya and his comrades said their targets so far have focused on Russian command posts – warehouses where enemy officers and weapons were located. Ukrainian officials say the new batch of Western hardware is already making a difference on the battlefield — a testament to the importance of continued security assistance and the painful cost of slow deliveries as the Russian military slowly expands its control over Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Artillery attacks from French self-propelled howitzers stationed in the port of Odessa reportedly forced the Russians to withdraw on Thursday from the strategically important Snake Island in the Black Sea. Latest updates from the Ukraine war HIMARS is the most advanced US-supplied system and has the longest range of Ukraine’s ground weapons, nearly 50 miles, allowing its forces to accurately strike Russian military targets without endangering its own citizens on occupied territory. Ukraine had been requesting the weapons for about two months before the transfer was approved — after Ukraine assured the Biden administration it would not use them to launch cross-border attacks in Russia. The Biden administration promised to send four more HIMARS to Ukraine as part of the additional $450 million in aid announced last week. All four were proposed in Europe, and training on those systems has already begun with Ukrainian troops who will use them, according to a Pentagon spokesman. “What we were using before was much more alarming,” said the four-man team’s gunner, whose role is to input the target’s coordinates. His nickname is Moroz, which translates to “frost”. HIMARS also brings more peace of mind, the soldiers said. With their old equipment, they avoided missile trajectories that passed through any population centers, limiting them only to firing through fields and forests to avoid possible harm to civilians, Moroz said. “I have no doubt what we’re going to hit,” Moroz said. “I know the missile will hit its target because it is guided by satellite.” The system previously used by this unit was the Soviet-era Uragan, a self-propelled multiple rocket launcher that had a maximum range of about 20 miles. It also had a margin of error of about half a mile and was targeted in coordination with a drone or reconnaissance team. HIMARS is guided by satellite and deviates from the target’s coordinates by a yard at most, the soldiers said. As a security measure, they asked to be identified only by their badges. With the systems considered a top priority target for the Russians, the families of the team members don’t even know they are working with them. They have to keep HIMARS constantly on the move because staying in one place for too long risks revealing its location. The launcher holds six missiles and is attached to a dark green truck frame. Operations are mostly conducted at night — soldiers stand at a distance and count before shouting “fire!” There is a bright flash of light as each rocket takes off. Then they are ready to move within two minutes — and speed is imperative to keep HIMARS safe because the Russians can quickly locate the source of the fire and fire back. The mobility is impressive – for a large vehicle, it can go up to 60 miles per hour, they said. “We are also surprised that such a high-precision weapon could fire so quietly,” Kuzya said. Photos found near the bombed apartment in Kyiv tell the story of one family The unit had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of HIMARS for a month. Then they finally got first-hand experience at a secret location outside Ukraine with American instructors for about two weeks. Instead of letting the Americans just demonstrate, the Ukrainian troops asked them to explain what to do, let the students try to adapt from there. “It was like, ‘Oh [expletive],” he said with a smile, wearing a bulletproof vest with a skull patch and “Welcome to Hell.” The computer system is entirely in English, so during training, interpreters explained what each button meant — all documented in a notebook that soldiers consult regularly. But Google Translate is still needed occasionally. Kuzya said it would be nice to have 50 HIMARS so Ukraine could deploy four in each direction of a huge front that stretches almost all of its eastern border with Russia. “Sputnik,” the unit’s commander, said it would be better to have the equipment sooner – before Moscow’s forces take control of most of the country’s Luhansk region. “I think it took a long time to get them here,” he said. “If he had been here much earlier, I think we would have already been done with this war.” Anastasia Vlasova contributed to this report.
