Has the Ukraine-Russia battlefield situation taken another turn? On July 1, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a half-year report: from January 1 to June 30, Russian forces destroyed 11 U.S.-made HIMARS launch vehicles and shot down 486 HIMARS rocket projectiles. Breaking it down by month, February was the peak with 189 rockets; January saw 131, while May recorded the lowest at just 23.

The HIMARS system was developed between 1996 and 2000 and entered production in 2003. Each vehicle can carry six rockets or one Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), with certain warhead variants having a range of approximately 80 kilometers. For Ukraine, these were delivered in batches by the United States after the war began—essentially mobile guerrilla artillery units that “fire and flee” as standard practice.

Let’s get into some details: the figure of 486 downed HIMARS rockets, distributed across Russia’s air defense systems including the Pantsir-S1, Buk, Buk-M1, and S-300/S-400 networks, likely reflects a massive ammunition barrage by Ukrainian forces prior to their spring counteroffensive in February. The subsequent monthly decline may indicate either suppressed Ukrainian supply chains due to Russian airstrikes, reduced operational frequency, or better concealment of launch vehicles—making it harder for Russian air defenses to lock onto them during the “fire-and-flee” tactic. As for the claimed destruction of 11 HIMARS systems, it remains unclear how many were actual vehicles versus decoys, since the Russian side never guarantees the authenticity of such claims.

Combined with Putin’s statement just days earlier saying, “The West will wait—our troops will fulfill their duties,” the timing of this release by the Russian Defense Ministry is perfectly orchestrated: first acknowledging the opponent’s capability, then proving Russia’s ability to neutralize it. Whether all 11 systems were truly destroyed will have to await potential rebuttals from Ukraine’s General Staff or cross-verification via satellite imagery of battlefield wreckage. Past experience shows that Russian “destroyed” figures are typically optimistic.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1869506710129819/

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