UK pledges missiles to Ukraine; new US ambassador in Kyiv

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Britain pledged Thursday to send sophisticated medium-range rocket systems to Ukraine, joining the United States and Germany in equipping the embattled nation with advanced weapons for shooting down aircraft and knocking out artillery.

Western arms have been critical to Ukraine’s success in stymieing Russia’s much larger and better-equipped military during a war now in its 99th day. But as Russian forces closed in on a key city in recent days, the Ukrainian government said its fighters needed better rocket launchers to prevail.

Russian forces continued to pound towns and cities overnight and to tighten their grip on the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk. The U.K. Defense Ministry reported that Russia had captured most of the city, one of two in Luhansk province that had remained under Ukrainian control.

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the U.K. would send an unspecified number of M270 launchers, which can fire precision-guided rockets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles). Ukrainian troops will be trained in the U.K. to use the equipment, he said.

The British government says the decision to provide the launchers was coordinated closely with the U.S. government, which said Wednesday that it would supply High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to Ukraine.

The two missile systems are similar, though the American one has wheels while the British one -- also U.S.-built -- runs on tracks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded for more and better weapons and sometimes accused the West of moving too slowly in providing them. After Western-supplied arms helped Ukraine fend off Russian attempts to storm the capital, Moscow shifted its focus to seizing all of eastern Ukraine's industrial Donbas region.

Military analysts think Russia is hoping to overrun the Donbas before any...