The United States on Friday announced more than $2 billion in new military aid to Ukraine, including ground-fired bombs that could nearly double the range of Ukraine’s strike force against the Russians.
These are the “GLSDB”, small diameter bombs manufactured by Boeing and Saab, which can fly up to 150 km and therefore threaten Russian positions behind the front lines.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his American counterpart Joe Biden after the announcement.
“The longer our weapons range and the more mobile our troops, the sooner Russia’s brutal aggression will end,” he tweeted.
The “GLSDBs” will give the Ukrainians “a longer-range capability (…) which will allow them to carry out operations to defend their territory and to retake their sovereign territory”, the Pentagon spokesman told the press. , Pat Ryder.
Ukraine asks the United States for ammunition that can go further than Himars rockets (80 km).
These GLSDBs can give Ukrainian forces the ability to strike positions in the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, and northern Crimea.
This could in particular threaten Russian arms depots.
According to Saab, these weapons could hit a target at any angle within one meter.
“The accuracy of GLSDBs is so high that they can hit the radius of a car tire,” Saab claims on its site.
When is The Delivery?
In December, John Hardie and Bradley Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank wrote that GLSDBs could be fired from several types of launchers, including Himars and M270 MLRS already in use in Ukraine.
“But they can also be fired by non-traditional launchers, such as from the back of a truck or any container, hidden in plain sight,” they added.
“It would therefore be more difficult for Russian forces to find and destroy the system.”
But they had said that the first deliveries to Ukraine could take up to nine months.
Asked about this, the Pentagon did not respond immediately.
A Boeing spokesman said the group would not provide details on delivery times.
This nearly $2.2 billion US security assistance also includes “crucial air defense capabilities to help Ukraine defend its people”, “armored infantry vehicles” and ammunition for the Himars launcher system. rockets, the Defense Ministry said.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion at the end of February 2022, the American authorities have allocated more than 29.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, according to the Pentagon.
“The United States will continue to work with our allies and partners to provide Ukraine with the capabilities to meet its immediate battlefield and longer-term security assistance needs,” the statement said. of the ministry.
This article is originally published on arabnews.fr
