After over a year of repeated requests from Kyiv for the American MGM-140 ATACMS, U.S. President Joe Biden has finally agreed to send these long-range missiles to help Ukraine with its counter-offensive.
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 27 — U.S. President Joe Biden told the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington will soon provide Kyiv with a small number of Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to help its counter-offensive against Russian forces in Russian-occupied Ukraine, according to an NBC news report which cited three U.S. officials and a congressional official. The White House, Pentagon, and Zelenskyy have not publicly announced or confirmed the move.
Biden’s decision comes after over a year of Kyiv’s pleas with the Biden administration for long-range missiles to help its counter-offensive. ATACMS are long-range ballistic missiles with a range of up to 300km (as per the website of Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of ATACMS) which will allow Ukraine to fire far beyond the front lines into command headquarters, weapons repositories, air bases, and supply networks like the railway in occupied territory.
“Ukraine is running out [of long range missiles] because it used up a sizable number in the summer,” says Shashank Joshi, the defense editor of the Economist, “it probably has long-range firing capabilities for another 6 months at best.” Ukraine’s already small arsenal of long-range missiles consisting mainly of the British Storm Shadow and French SCALP cruise missiles has depleted after use in the counter-offensive this Summer making America’s supply of MGM-140 ATACMS critical to Ukraine’s long-range striking ability. “Ukraine will need long-range missiles especially in the winter,” according to Joshi, “When Russia is likely to move its facilities farther behind the front lines since ground fighting becomes more difficult due to inclement weather.”
ATACMS are also different from the Storm Shadow and SCALP long-range missiles given to Ukraine by Britain and France respectively. Storm Shadow and SCALP are cruise missiles powered by a jet engine with a flat low flight trajectory. ATACMS, however, are ballistic missiles which have a projectile trajectory and are much faster in hitting their target which will allow the Ukrainian military to strike moving and time-sensitive targets.
“What’s neat about the ATACMS is that they can have warheads of different types,” says Joshi, “and the cluster warhead can do a lot of damage.” The cluster warhead ATACMS explode in the air over a target releasing submunitions that detonate over a large area surrounding the target, as opposed to the unitary warhead which is filled with a single explosive. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. will be giving Ukraine cluster warhead ATACMS. “Cluster Munitions are especially bad because undetonated submunition in an area persists after the attack, often later killing civilians that walk through it,” says Princeton History Professor Yana Prymachenko. Many human rights groups have also voiced their concerns about the U.S. supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions even outside of the most recent cluster warhead ATACMS.
Even though the White House announced a new $325 million military aid package for Kyiv on Thursday when Zelenskiy visited Washington for talks with Biden, the announcement did not include and wasn’t succeeded by a statement on the supply of ATACMS. For over a year now, Washington has been hesitant on providing Ukraine with ATACMS for “three main reasons” according to Joshi.
The first is the risk of escalation and potential for Ukraine to attack Russian territory as opposed to just Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova said, “if Washington decides to supply longer-range missiles to Kyiv, then it will be crossing a red line, and will become a direct party to the conflict,” in a briefing earlier this month reported by Reuters. The stakes of the escalation are immense considering that both Russia and the U.S. are nuclear powers. The second, is that America’s own stockpile of long-range missiles is limited and supplying ATACMS to Ukraine may undercut America’s military readiness.
The third, and “very important” reason for the delay in the provision of ATACMS to Ukraine according to Joshi is that currently most military aid to Ukraine is funded through presidential drawdown authority which is capped. “Even with the increase [in Presidential drawdown authority] to $11 billion by Congress in Fiscal Year 2022, the authority is limited and Biden probably considers it fit to fund more critical military aid like air defense, artillery, and ammunition which is of much greater priority than long-range missiles,” says Joshi. This opinion was echoed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who urged allies to send artillery ammunition and air defense systems which are Ukraine’s most urgent needs after a meeting with the Ukraine Contact Group this month.
Joshi says that ATACMS are “just another long-range missile to add on to Ukraine’s inventory” and “will not affect the course of the war by much” especially if only a small number of ATACMS are provided but artillery and ammunition are critical to Ukrainian defense. According to Joshi, the future of American funding for Ukraine looking grim. “At the moment the vast majority of democrats and Republicans support military aid for Ukraine, but aid to Ukraine is becoming a partisan issue with Republican voters increasingly questioning support,” Joshi says. “So considering the political climate in the U.S.,” Joshi adds, “prioritizing long-range missiles may not be a strategic move.”
