US will not send Ukraine rocket systems that can reach Russia, says Biden

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Monday he would not send rocket systems to Ukraine that could hit targets well inside Russian territory, despite urgent requests from Kyiv for long-range weapons.

"We are not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia," Biden told reporters in Washington. Pro-Western Ukraine has received extensive US military aid since Russia invaded its neighbour in late February, but says it needs long-range rockets equivalent to what Moscow’s forces use.

Kyiv has asked the United States for mobile batteries of long-range rockets, the M270 MLRS and the M142 Himars, which can launch multiple rockets at the same time with a range of up to 187 miles (300 kilometers), eight times or more the distance of artillery in the field.

This could give Ukrainian forces the ability to reach, with great precision, targets far behind Russian lines, though it is unclear if that is their intent. "If the West really wants Ukraine’s victory, maybe it is time to give us long-range MLRS?" Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s advisor Mykhailo Podoliak tweeted recently.

"It is hard to fight when you are attacked from a 70-km distance and have nothing to fight back with." The United States earlier in May announced another $40 billion assistance package amid speculation it included such weapons.

Since failing to capture Kyiv in the war’s early stages, Russia’s army has narrowed its focus, hammering cities with relentless artillery and missile barrages as it seeks to consolidate its control.

Moscow’s forces have continued a push in the eastern Donbas region, upping the pressure on the twin cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Ukrainian forces pushed back over the weekend in the southern region around Kherson as Zelensky seeks to crank up already hefty international pressure on Moscow.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to Russian forces at the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol may face the death penalty, a pro-Moscow separatist official said on Monday.

"The court will make a decision about them," Yuri Sirovatko, the justice minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

"For such crimes we have the highest form of punishment in the DNR -- the death penalty. "All the prisoners of war are on the territory of the DNR," he said, adding that there were around 2,300 soldiers from Azovstal among them.

Hundreds of Ukrainian defenders of the strategic port of Mariupol on the coast of the Sea of Azov in the country’s southeast surrendered this month after holding out in underground tunnels at the Azovstal steelworks for weeks.

Kyiv has said it wants to exchange the soldiers in a prisoner swap, while Moscow has indicated that they will first stand trial. Among the Ukrainian fighters who gave themselves up were members of the Azov regiment, a former paramilitary unit which has integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces.

Russia describes the unit, which has previous links to far-right groups, as a neo-Nazi organisation. In a phone call with Vladimir Putin on Saturday, the leaders of France and Germany urged the Russian president to release the Ukrainian fighters from Azovstal.