A Russian military analyst said Saturday that High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) that the United States is giving Ukraine to aid in its fight against Russian forces will pose a "big problem" for Russia.
On Friday, the White House announced that it would provide Ukraine with four additional HIMARS, a weapons system that the Pentagon has previously said is having a "significant impact...on the front lines."
Michael Kofman, who heads the Russia Studies Program at the Virginia-based think tank CNA, said in an interview with Radio Free Europe that HIMARS are "going to help Ukraine gain a degree of parity with Russian artillery, and is going to create a big problem for the Russian military, and how they organize both logistics and command and control and the degree of attrition they take on the battlefield."
In a tweet on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked President Joe Biden for the new rocket systems.
"Critically important, powerful arms will save our soldiers' lives, speed up the liberation of our land from the Russian aggressor. I appreciate the strategic friendship between our nations. Together to victory!" Zelensky wrote.
Also on Saturday, retired U.S. Army General Mark Hertling said that the HIMARS the U.S. is sending to Ukraine are a "game changer," adding that "Russia is in dire shape & losing" while "Ukraine is adapting to the fight & winning."
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that Ukraine is "effectively employing" HIMARS "with strikes against Russian command and control nodes, their logistical networks, their field artillery near defense sites and many other targets."
"These strikes are steadily degrading the Russian ability to supply their troops, command and control of their forces, and carry out their illegal war of aggression," he added.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.
In an interview published on Friday, Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Radio Free Europe that Russia is "obviously at a loss" when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
"They don't know what to do, so they are improvising. Putin needs to achieve something that will convince Russians that he won and he can't get it," he said.
Gallyamov's comments came after statements from the Russian Foreign Ministry last week indicated that Russia's territorial ambitions now extend beyond the Donbas region where forces have been focused in recent months.
