John Hamilton/US Army/AP/File
In this image provided by the U.S. Army, Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment, 18th Field Artillery Brigade, from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, conduct live fire tests at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, in December 2021 , through. the early versions of the Army Tactical Missile System.
CNN –
President Joe Biden is expected to soon make a final decision on sending long-range missiles to Ukraine for the first time, a key step recommended by the State and Defense departments after months of requests from Ukraine, people familiar with the discussions told CNN .
According to the sources, discussions about deploying the Army’s long-range tactical missile systems, also known as ATACMS, have increased significantly in recent weeks.
No final decision has been made about sending the missiles, officials said. But “the likelihood of it happening now is much greater than before,” said an official familiar with the discussions. “Much better. I just don’t know when.”
U.S. officials had held off on deploying long-range surface-to-surface missiles because they feared an escalation in the conflict because they could potentially be fired at Russia itself. But those concerns have largely subsided as Ukraine has shown it is not using other U.S.-supplied weapons to attack areas inside Russia, officials said. Ukraine has carried out attacks inside Russia, but these have been carried out with homemade drones and weapons, allowing Kiev to stick to its commitment not to use American weapons inside Russia.
Currently, the maximum range of U.S. weapons stationed in Ukraine with the small-diameter ground-launched bomb is about 93 miles. The ATACMS, which have a range of about 186 miles, would allow the Ukrainian military to strike targets twice as far away – even further than the UK-supplied Storm Shadow long-range missiles, which have a range of about 155 miles. ATACMS missiles are fired from HIMARS missile launchers, the same type of vehicle that fires the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles already deployed in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria last week that he planned to speak to Biden again about the matter and that Ukraine hoped to receive ATACMS “in the fall.” Zelensky met for several hours in Kiev last week with the top US diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
It’s not clear how many of those the U.S. would ultimately provide, but State Department and Pentagon officials believe sending the missiles could help Ukraine make progress in its ongoing counteroffensive, which has been slow to make decisive progress.
More recently, defense officials have been cautious about deploying a system that the U.S. doesn’t have many tons of in its own fixed stockpile. How many the U.S. has in its arsenal is secret, but providing hundreds of the missiles demanded by Ukraine could undermine U.S. military readiness, some Pentagon officials argued.
Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the ATACMS, currently produces about 500 per year to fulfill current U.S. Army contracts, a Lockheed spokesperson told CNN. However, many of these systems have already been allocated to US allies other than Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces have also demonstrated that they are using British-made Storm Shadows responsibly and effectively, British officials said. Storm shadows have enabled Ukraine to attack, among other things, Russian ammunition depots and repair facilities in far-away Crimea. France announced in July that it would send its own version of the Storm Shadows, known as SCALPs.
Ukrainian officials have stepped up their lobbying campaign for the ATACMS in recent days, arguing that the systems are necessary to successfully repel the Russians from Ukrainian territory.
“When we talk about long-range missiles for Ukraine, it is not just a whim, but a real need,” the head of Zelensky’s office, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram on Monday. “The Army’s effectiveness on the battlefield, as well as the lives of the military and our progress, depend on it.”
The transfer of ATACMS would be just the latest example of the U.S. backing down on providing a system after months of pressure. The Biden administration also opposed the delivery of multiple rocket systems, Patriot air defense systems, Abrams tanks and cluster munitions – all of which were ultimately delivered to Ukraine after extensive lobbying by Ukrainian officials.
Biden and senior Pentagon officials also said earlier this year that the Ukrainians did not need F-16 fighter jets, but relented in May and announced that the U.S. would support an F-16 training coalition for Ukraine.
U.S. officials have argued that the government is simply holding off on supplying certain weapons and equipment until it determines that the systems are necessary for Ukraine’s battlefield objectives. But critics say the repeated delays in providing advanced weapons have only led to a longer war and given Russia “more time to mine our entire country and build multiple defense lines,” Zelensky said in July.
“I’m tired of hearing about escalation,” Republican Sen. James Risch of Idaho said at the Aspen Security Forum in July. “I want Putin to wake up in the morning and worry about what he’s going to do that will lead to escalation, rather than us wringing our hands and saying, ‘Oh, we can’t do that.’ Look, everything I said in the beginning, they have now done. God bless [Biden]. I wish he would have done it a year ago.”