Biden sends rockets to Kyiv as US warns Ukraine war will last many months

Secretary of State Blinken says the Pentagon is arming Ukraine in anticipation of long conflict ahead

A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars) rocket fired by US forces during live-fire exercises in the Philippines. Reuters

The Himars is a light multiple rocket launcher developed in the late 1990s. EPA

Himars rockets are fired during US military exercises in Morocco. AFP

Ukrainian soldiers ride on a vehicle carrying a rocket launcher in eastern Ukraine. AFP

A vehicle fires the Himars during combat training in Yakima, Washington state. The Olympian / AP

A soldier stands in the ruins of Mariupol's theatre, destroyed in Russian shelling. AFP

A Himars rocket launcher displayed at the 2021 Dubai Airshow. AFP

A Ukrainian soldier stands outside a school hit by Russian artillery in the village of Zelenyi Hai. AFP

US military personnel stand by a Himars vehicle during a defence show in Saudi Arabia. AFP

A US Himars is unloaded during military exercises in Latvia. EPA

Ukrainian soldiers embedded in a trench on the front line in the Lugansk region. AFP

US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday a new $700 million weapons package for Ukraine that includes advanced rocket systems that can strike Russian forces from a distance of up to 80 kilometres.

And US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the conflict will probably stretch on for many more months.

To avoid escalating the war, Washington announced the plan to give Ukraine precision Himars rocket systems after receiving assurances from Kyiv that it would not use them to hit targets inside Russian territory.

"The United States will stand with our Ukrainian partners and continue to provide Ukraine with weapons and equipment to defend itself," Mr Biden said.

A top Pentagon official said the US would initially send four Himars systems to Ukraine, noting it would take about three weeks to train Ukrainian forces to use them.

"No system is going to turn the war. This is a battle of national will … it is a grinding, hard conflict," said Colin Kahl, under secretary of defence for policy.

The Himars multiple-launch rocket system can fire several precision-guided missiles at once.

A western official described it as highly mobile and particularly effective at engaging targets then shifting location.

“It outperforms the other systems that Russia is fielding in the battle space," the official said.

"What it will mean is that weapon system will enable counter-battery fire to be able to go after Russian artillery in a deeper and more effective way.

"By having that reach of 80 kilometres, you can get into those Russian supply lines."

Mr Biden, who announced his decision to send the rockets to Ukraine in an opinion piece late on Tuesday, said the US would not support attacks inside Russia, which quickly warned of greater risks of conflict between Washington and Moscow.

But Mr Blinken dismissed suggestions that the US could be risking escalation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine on February 24 despite repeated western warnings.

"It is Russia that is attacking Ukraine, not the other way around," he said alongside Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

"Simply put, the best way to avoid escalation is for Russia to stop the aggression and the war that it started. It's fully within its power to do so."

A Soviet/Russian towed 152mm field gun, called the 2A36 Giatsint-B, is fired by self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic militia on the front line near Avdiivka, Donetsk region. EPA

A girl runs through a fountain in front of the Opera house in Lviv, Ukraine. AP

A girl is seen through a hole in the kitchen of an apartment destroyed by Russian attacks in Irpin, outside Kyiv, Ukraine. Reuters

A young woman walks near a damaged Soviet tank monument in Trostyanets, Ukraine. Getty Images

Members of the foreign volunteers unit which fights in the Ukrainian army, in Severodonetsk. Reuters

A woman looks for her belongings beneath rubble after a strike destroyed three houses in the city of Slovyansk, in the Ukrainian region of Donbas. AFP

Ukraine fans hold up anti-war signs before a Fifa World Cup qualifier match at Hampden Park, Glasgow. PA

A street musician plays the piano to raise money for the Ukrainian army in Sumy, Ukraine. Getty

Residents queue to fetch water in the town of Rubizhne, in Ukraine's Luhansk enclave. Reuters

Children walk past a damaged school in the city of Merefa in the Kharkiv area, Ukraine. EPA

A man repairs a car in a residential area of Mariupol. AFP

An aerial view shows a Russian vessel reportedly delivering stolen Ukrainian grain at Latakia port in Syria. AFP

Children sit inside a bomb shelter in Rubizhne. Reuters

A man pushes a bicycle near a residential building in Rubizhne that was destroyed during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces. Reuters

Vlada Shcheglova, wife of Ukraine footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, before the Fifa World Cup qualifier at Hampden Park in Glasgow. PA

A damaged building in the town of Rubizhne. Reuters

A man reads a book as he sits on a fragment of a rocket at an exhibition in Kyiv featuring Russian equipment that was damaged or destroyed during the conflict. AFP

Ukrainian servicemen ride electric scooters in Kyiv. AFP

A man reacts at the site where his house once stood in Motyzhyn village in the Kyiv region. AFP

The burnt wreckage of a tank sits in the overflowing Uhor river, in Kolychivka, Ukraine. Getty Images

People sit next to a damaged apartment building in Irpin, near Kyiv. AFP

Evgeny, 31, stands in his damaged apartment in the Saltivka district, northern Kharkiv. AFP

Ukrainian workers repair a flat damaged by shelling in the southern city of Odesa. EPA

The windows of a Gazprom oil company building in Moscow glow in the shape of the symbol Z, associated with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. EPA

A Ukrainian soldier looks at sunflower seeds on fire in a storage area, after shelling on a farm close to the front line near Bakhmut. EPA

The burnt wreckage of a Ukrainian tank, in Kolychivka. Getty Images

A grave in front of destroyed residential buildings in Mariupol. AFP

Residents sit outside a destroyed apartment building in Mariupol. AFP

A cat walks past destroyed residential buildings in Mariupol. AFP

Local artists draw on fragments of exploded rockets in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. EPA

Mr Blinken said the Pentagon was arming Ukraine in anticipation of a long conflict ahead.

"As best we can assess right now, we are still looking at many months of conflict," he said.

"As long as this goes on, we want to make sure that Ukraine has in hand what it needs to defend itself and we want to make sure that Russia is feeling strong pressure from as many countries as possible to end the aggression."

Meanwhile Danish voters went to the polls on Wednesday to decide whether to join the EU’s common defence policy.

Nordic neighbours Sweden and Finland have decided to apply for Nato membership, and many European countries are shoring up their defences to face up to a newly hostile Russia.

Mr Stoltenberg said he would convene senior officials from the three nations in Brussels in the coming days "to ensure that we make progress on the applications of Finland and Sweden to join Nato".

"My intention is to have this in place before the Nato summit" in Madrid starting on June 28, he said.

"Finland and Sweden have made it clear that they are ready to sit down and to address the concerns expressed by Turkey.

Mr Putin "wanted less Nato. He is getting more Nato", Mr Stoltenberg said.

All 30 Nato members must agree to admit a new member and Turkey has voiced objections, saying militants from the PKK, the Kurdish separatist group considered terrorists by Ankara, were in Finland and Sweden.

Mr Stoltenberg said that the two nations and Nato took the PKK issue "very seriously".

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s UN ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya on Wednesday angrily rejected recent suggestions from Henry Kissinger, a geo-strategic consultant and former US secretary of state, that Kyiv should cede territory to end the war with Russia.

In an online session, Mr Kyslytsya condemned the “irresponsible drivel” from Mr Kissinger, who at last month’s World Economic Forum in Davos said Ukraine should let Russia keep Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

“The Ukrainians … are so determined that no deals that involve permanent territorial concessions are supported by the public,” Mr Kyslytsya said.

"Any politician that will try to break such a deal with the Russians or whoever has no political future."

- Agencies contributed to this report.