US secretly sent long-range missiles to Ukraine
The US has secretly sent long-range ballistic missiles to Ukraine for the first time and they have already been used on the battlefield, officials said on Wednesday.
Joe Biden approved delivery of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in early March, and the US included a “significant” number of them in a $300 million aid package announced at the time, it has emerged.
Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give the country nearly double the striking distance – up to 190 miles – that it had with the mid-range version of the weapon that it received from the US last October.
The US is providing more of these missiles in a new military aid package signed by Mr Biden on Wednesday.
The two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delivery before it became public, would not provide the exact number of missiles given last month or in the latest aid package, which totals about $1 billion.
The long-range ATACMS was used by Ukraine to bomb a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week.
Ukraine has been forced to ration its weapons and is facing increasing Russian attacks. Ukraine had been begging for the long-range system because the missiles provide a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range.
Information about the delivery was kept so quiet that lawmakers and others in recent days have been demanding that the US send the weapons not knowing they were already in Ukraine.
For months, the US resisted sending Ukraine the long-range missiles out of concern that Kyiv could use them to hit deep into Russian territory, enraging Moscow and escalating the conflict. That was a key reason the administration sent the mid-range version, with a range of roughly 100 miles, in October instead.
A senior US military official said Wednesday that the White House and military planners looked carefully at the risks of providing long-range fires to Ukraine and determined that the time was right to provide them now.
Adml Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Associated Press in an interview that long-range weapons would help Ukraine take out Russian logistics nodes and troop concentrations that are not on the front lines. He declined to identify what specific weapons were being provided but said they will be “very disruptive if used properly, and I’m confident they will be”.
Like many of the other sophisticated weapons systems provided to Ukraine, the administration weighed up whether their use would risk further escalating the conflict.
“I think the time is right, and the boss (Mr Biden) made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now,” Mr Grady said Wednesday. “I think it was a very well considered decision, and we really wrung it out – but again, any time you introduce a new system, any change – into a battlefield, you have to think through the escalatory nature of it.”
Ukrainian officials have not publicly acknowledged the receipt or use of long-range ATACMS. But in thanking Congress for passing the new aid bill Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, noted on Twitter that “Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, artillery and air defence are extremely important tools for the quick restoration of a just peace”.
One of the US officials said the Biden administration warned Russia last year that if Moscow acquired and used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to Kyiv.
Analysis
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