The Russian military has blundered repeatedly during the seven months since its armies stormed into Ukraine, but if Kyiv’s successful counteroffensives had to be explained with just one word, that word would be an acronym: “Himars.”
A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System is a truck-mounted canister of six missiles capable of launching pinpoint strikes against targets far behind Russian lines. Provided by the U.S., the systems are “turning the course of war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Himars rockets have struck more than 400 targets with “devastating effect,” confirmed Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Or, from Moscow’s point of view, as one Russian journalist put it upon surveying the scene of an ammunition dump hit by Himars rockets, “The situation is horrible.”
