After Ukraine-Russia Meeting, U.N. Sees ‘a Ray of Hope’ to Free Grain
The strategy by Ukrainian forces was still in its early days, and it was not yet clear whether it was allowing them to disrupt Russian artillery attacks and offensive operations.

Some Ukrainian officials argued that the Russians were being forced to move supply hubs farther from the front, a claim that could not be verified.

“The Russian army has not stopped shelling, but it is likely preserving its existing supplies of ammunition because these provisions have been disrupted by the work of our new long-range weapons,” said Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk region’s military administration.

Crucial to this effort, Ukrainian officials say, has been the arrival of new long-range weapons systems and artillery units, particularly the truck-mounted, multiple rocket launchers from the United States known as High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems or HIMARS, and similar systems from other NATO countries.

Those rocket launchers, which began arriving in Ukraine in June, are proving effective at targeting Russian military bases and ammunition supply depots far behind enemy lines. The systems fire satellite-guided rockets, whose range of more than 40 miles is greater than anything else Ukrainian troops have in their arsenal.

Ukrainian officials said a strike by such rockets last week on a Russian military base and ammunition depot in the Kherson Region had killed as many as 100 Russian servicemen and wiped out an antiaircraft installation.