In June, the United States started supplying Ukraine with high mobility artillery rocket system launchers, also called HIMARS. From the moment they hit the battlefield, HIMARS made a huge impact in how the war was being fought.

This week, however, the Pentagon revealed the U.S. secretly modified the HIMARS given to Ukraine. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. configured the launchers to make sure they could not fire long-range missiles into Russia.

The U.S. supplied Ukraine with 20 HIMARS this summer, and a large inventory of satellite-guided rockets with a 50-mile range. Without the HIMARS, Ukraine likely would not have been able to hold off Russia for this long, let alone launch successful counteroffensives.

[This disclosure was likely necessitated by the explosions this week at air bases in central Russia, hundreds of miles from Ukraine. However, it was hardly a secret at the time that the US wanted the use of these systems limited to Ukraine only. — Ed]