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KYIV: Western allies pledged precision rockets and missile systems to Ukraine on Friday, after President Volodymyr Zelensky called for sophisticated weapons to help retain control of the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut.
The European Union agreed to introduce price caps on Russian petroleum products to try to further limit Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war chest by targeting his key exports.
The announcements came shortly after Zelensky told asummit with EU leaders in Kyiv: “No one will surrender Bakhmut. We will fight as long as we can. “If weapon (deliveries) are accelerated — namely long-range weapons —we will not only not withdraw from Bakhmut, we willbegin to de-occupy Donbas,” he said of the eastern region of Ukraine.
The United States on Friday announced a new $2. 2billion package of arms and munitions, which the Pentagon said included a new rocket-propelled precision bomb that could nearly do-uble Kyiv’s strike range against Russian forces. The ground-launched small-diameter bombs (GLSDB), which can fly up to 150 kilometres (93 miles), could threaten key Russian supply lines, arms depots and air bases far behind the front lines.
They potentially give Kyiv’s forces the ability to strike anywhere in the Russianoccupied Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as the northern part of occupied Crimea.
France and Italy will deliver mobile surface-to-air missile systems, the French defence ministry said, in response to an urgent request from Kyiv to help protect “civilian populations and infrastructure from Russian air attacks”.
The European Union agreed to introduce price caps on Russian petroleum products to try to further limit Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war chest by targeting his key exports.
The announcements came shortly after Zelensky told asummit with EU leaders in Kyiv: “No one will surrender Bakhmut. We will fight as long as we can. “If weapon (deliveries) are accelerated — namely long-range weapons —we will not only not withdraw from Bakhmut, we willbegin to de-occupy Donbas,” he said of the eastern region of Ukraine.
The United States on Friday announced a new $2. 2billion package of arms and munitions, which the Pentagon said included a new rocket-propelled precision bomb that could nearly do-uble Kyiv’s strike range against Russian forces. The ground-launched small-diameter bombs (GLSDB), which can fly up to 150 kilometres (93 miles), could threaten key Russian supply lines, arms depots and air bases far behind the front lines.
They potentially give Kyiv’s forces the ability to strike anywhere in the Russianoccupied Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as the northern part of occupied Crimea.
France and Italy will deliver mobile surface-to-air missile systems, the French defence ministry said, in response to an urgent request from Kyiv to help protect “civilian populations and infrastructure from Russian air attacks”.
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