Ukrainian military receives coordinates for missile strikes from the US

According to a report, US military personnel stationed elsewhere in Europe give the Ukrainian military its coordinates for specific missile strikes.

Ukrainian officials claimed that they almost never carry out missile strikes without detailed coordinates provided by US military personnel stationed elsewhere in Europe. This was reported by The Washington Post on Thursday, February 9.

They were referring specifically to strikes using the HIMARS and M270 multiple-launch rocket systems stressed the news outlet. It is alleged that Kyiv chooses its own goals.

The newspaper cited three unnamed senior Ukrainian officials and one senior US official. The latter said that Washington was providing assistance to Kyiv: “to ensure accuracy and conserve limited supplies of ammunition”.

He noted that Ukraine does not expect the US to approve targets for strikes and that in general, the American side acts “in an exclusively advisory role”.

One of the Ukrainian officials said that the military first determines which targets they want to hit and where they want to hit. This data is then sent to the senior command, which passes the request to its American partners for more accurate coordinates.

As the official clarified, the United States does not always provide the requested coordinates, and in this case, Ukrainian military strikes do not apply. According to him, “there are no complaints about this process”.

Another interlocutor from Ukraine told WP that the coordinates are being coordinated through the American base on NATO territory. They called this process “very fast”, although the publication did not specify what specific base is in question, for security reasons.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the US does not want to transfer ATACMS ballistic missiles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces because of the possibility of using them to strike Russia. According to the newspaper, due to similar concerns, the US modified the range of HIMARS before sending it to Kyiv.

On February 2, Oleksiy Reznikov, the head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, announced his readiness to give guarantees that long-range missiles would not be used on Russian territory. He added though that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had enough targets in the “temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine”.

Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of the National Security Council of Ukraine, on February 7, gave permission for strikes to be carried out against Russia with Ukrainian-made weapons, as reported by kommersant.ru.

Russia’s high command has been notorious in spreading misinformation throughout its invasion of Ukraine, however, including in what it shares online and on social media channels.  In January 2022, the European Union banned Russian-controlled media, while social media giants including Facebook did the same over misinformation concerns.

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