President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced the deployment of more Western-supplied NASAMS air-defense systems as Ukraine prepares for an expected increase in Russian air strikes targeting its energy infrastructure during the cold season.
“Additional NASAMS systems from partners were put on combat duty,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram. “Timely reinforcement of our air defense before winter,” he added, without specifying the number of extra NASAMS deployed.
Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was regularly targeted last winter by Russian missile and drone strikes that caused victims and damage as well as misery to millions of people who were left in the dark and cold amid freezing temperatures.
U.S. officials last week said that Washington is expected to deliver $425 million in new military aid to Ukraine, including some $125 million earmarked for ammunition for High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and NASAMS as well as other types of armaments.
NASAMS, or National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, are a highly mobile networked short-to-medium range air-defense system developed jointly by the United States and Norway that were first delivered to Ukraine in November last year.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the time that NASAMS deployed in Ukraine had a 100 percent success rate intercepting Russian missiles.
Ukraine’s air defenses, meanwhile, warned that more Russian strikes using ballistic missiles were likely on November 7.
“There is a threat of using ballistic missiles in areas where an air raid alarm has been declared. Do not ignore air raid alarms. Head to the nearest shelter,” the military said in a statement in the early afternoon on November 7.
A senior Moscow-appointed official in the occupied eastern city of Donetsk said Ukrainian shelling killed six people and wounded nearly a dozen.
Denis Pushilin, the Kremlin-backed de facto head of the Donetsk region, said Ukrainian forces had fired long-range missiles provided last year by the…
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