Biden says US won’t give Ukraine rocket systems capable of reaching Russia

President Joe Biden says the United States will not provide Ukraine with rocket systems capable of reaching Russia.

Since the onset of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, the United States and its European allies have been pouring advanced weapons in the ex-Soviet country, a move that Moscow has time and again warned would prolong the conflict.

Kiev, which hopes to outnumber the Russians both technologically and in numbers of artillery, heavily relies on its western allies to support and fulfill their promises to regain back the Donbas, composed of two breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk that Moscow has vowed to liberate.

Reports by CNN and The Washington Post on Friday said that Washington was preparing to send advanced long-range rocket systems to Kiev to use against Russian forces, particularly in Donbas.

On Monday, Biden told reporters that the advanced weapons that the US intended to send to Ukraine would not include those rockets that can reach the Russian Federation.   

“We are not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia”, said the US president, after returning to the White House after a weekend in Delaware.

US to transfer long-range rocket systems to Ukraine, signaling 'unacceptable escalation'

The US will transfer long-range rocket systems to Ukraine, signaling an "unacceptable escalation" in the fight against Russia in the Donbas region.

Ukrainian officials have sought a longer-range system called the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), a high-mobility automatic system that can fire up to 12 MLRS rockets miles away in fewer than 60 seconds.

Reports by CNN and the Washington Post claimed Biden was leaning toward providing Ukraine MLRS and another system, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), as part of a bigger military aid package to Kiev. t was not clear which system Biden was referring to in his comments.

According to a report by the New York Times, the US, apart from giving financial aid and advanced weapons to Ukraine, has provided Ukrainian forces with intelligence, including information on Russian troop movements and location of Russia's mobile military headquarters that has helped them target and kill Russian generals.

On the weekend, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Kiev had started receiving Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Denmark and self-propelled howitzers from the US, arms that would be used to by forces fighting Russia’s military operation.

Harpoon shore-to-ship missiles would be operated alongside Ukrainian Neptune missiles to defend the coast, including the southern port of Odesa, he added at the time.

Report: US aims to arm Ukraine with advanced anti-ship missiles

The Biden administration is working to deliver anti-ship missiles to Ukrainian fighters to help defeat Russia

Surrendered Azovstal soldiers may face death penalty: Donbas separatists

Separately on Monday, Yuri Sirovatko, the justice minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) in eastern Ukraine, said Ukrainian troops and fighters who surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol may face the death penalty.

“For such crimes we have the highest form of punishment in the DNR — the death penalty,” he said. “All the prisoners of war are on the territory of the DNR.”

According to Sirovatko, there were about 2,300 soldiers from Azovstal among those who had holed up for weeks in the maze-like steel plant.

The Ukrainian government wants to exchange the soldiers in a prisoner swap, while Moscow has indicated that they would first stand trial.

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