Ukraine uses long-range missiles secretly provided by US to hit Russian-held areas, officials say
WASHINGTON — Ukraine has begun using long-range ballistic missiles secretly supplied by the United States for the first time, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and sending Russian troops into another occupied territory overnight , US officials said on Wednesday.
The new missiles, long sought by Ukrainian leaders, will give Ukraine almost double the strike distance – up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) – that it had with the mid-range version of the weapon it received from the US last October. One of the officials said the US is supplying more of these missiles in a new military aid package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
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, an official said.
The two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delivery before it became public, would not give the exact number of missiles given last month or in the latest aid package, which totals about $1 billion.
Ukraine has been forced to ration its weapons and faces increasing Russian attacks. Ukraine pleaded for the long-range system because the missiles provide a crucial ability to hit Russian targets further away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range.
Information about the delivery was kept so hush-hush that lawmakers and others have demanded in recent days that the U.S. send the weapons — unaware that they were already in Ukraine.
For months, the US has resisted sending long-range missiles to Ukraine, fearing that Kiev could use them to strike deep into Russian territory, angering Moscow and escalating the conflict. That was a big reason why the government sent out the mid-range version, with a range of about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles), in October.
A senior U.S. military official said Wednesday that the White House and military planners carefully looked at the risks of delivering long-range fires to Ukraine and determined the time was right to provide them now.
Admiral Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Associated Press in an interview that long-range weapons will help Ukraine take out Russian logistics hubs and troop concentrations that are not on the front lines. He declined to identify which specific weapons were delivered, but said they “will be very disruptive if used properly, and I am confident that they will be.”
Like many of the other advanced weapons systems supplied to Ukraine, the government has weighed whether their use would risk further escalating the conflict.
“I think the time is right, and the boss (Biden) has made the decision that the time is right to provide it based on where the battle is right now,” Grady said Wednesday. “I think it was a very deliberate decision, and we really wrung it out – but again, any time you introduce a new system, any change – on a battlefield, you have to think about 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 on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted on the social platform
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 offer Kiev the same capabilities.
Russia received some of those weapons from North Korea and has used them on the battlefield in Ukraine, the official said, prompting the Biden administration to greenlight the new long-range missiles.
The US had refused to confirm that the long-range missiles had been given to Ukraine until they were actually used on the battlefield and Kiev’s leaders had approved their public release. An official said the weapons were used early last week to attack the airport in Dzhankoi, a city in Crimea, a peninsula that Russia captured from Ukraine in 2014. They were used again at night east of the occupied city of Berdyansk.
Videos on social media showed the explosions at the military airport last week, but officials at the time would not confirm they were the ATACMS.
Ukraine’s first use of the weapon came after political deadlock in Congress delayed for months the passage of a $95 billion foreign aid package that included funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. Facing an acute shortage of artillery and air defense systems, Ukraine has rationed its ammunition as US funding has been delayed.
As the war enters its third year, Russia has used the slowdown in U.S. arms deliveries and its own advantage in firepower and personnel to step up attacks in eastern Ukraine. It is increasingly using satellite-guided hover bombs – dropped from aircraft from a safe distance – to target Ukrainian forces beset by troop and ammunition shortages.
The medium-range missiles delivered last year, and some of the long-range missiles shipped recently, carry cluster munitions that open up in the air when fired, releasing hundreds of bombs instead of a single warhead. Others shipped recently have a single warhead.
A crucial factor in the March decision to send the weapons was the U.S. military’s ability to replace the older ATACMS. The Army is now buying the Precision Strike Missile, so it is more comfortable taking ATACMS off the shelves to supply to Ukraine, the official said.