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Ukraine carried out this Tuesday (17) the first attack in its war against the Russiansponsored invasion with a new weapon supplied by the United States from Kiev after more than a year of persistent requests.
This is the ballistic missile MGM140 ATACMS (abbreviation for Army Tactical Missile System), which has been used by the Americans since 1991. It is a particularly powerful weapon that, according to available data, hit two Russian air bases in the Moscowoccupied areas of Ukraine.
The information was published by the Ukrainian MP Oleksii Gontcharneko on X (exTwitter) and confirmed by American authorities in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Interview with Russian military bloggers and an analyst Sheet were in the same row and said there was a loss of nine helicopters.
Moscow has not yet commented on this, but the delivery of ATACMS has been one of the taboos of the war so far, for fear of an escalation threatened by the Kremlin itself. Joe Biden’s administration feared that the weapons, which in their most powerful version can hit targets 300 km away, would be used against Russian territory.
As with other weapons releases, such as antiaircraft missiles and tanks, the red line became blurred. This was influenced by the fact that the United Kingdom and France deployed highly effective airtosurface cruise missiles with a range of 500 km.
Nevertheless, the Americans only allowed the delivery of a few copies of the ATACMS in a version with an even shorter range than the most powerful, estimated by experts at 200 km. But it is a very precise and deadly weapon, armed in the Ukrainian case with the condemned American fragmentation warheads.
“ATACMS are already with us,” Goncharenko wrote, referring to an attack in Berdyansk. The other target was an airfield in the Lugansk region. The missile is an expensive weapon, about R$7.5 million per unit. It is used by more than ten US allies.
The delivery of the model came after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous visit to the United States last month. After speaking at the UN General Assembly, he was criticized by Republican opposition in Congress and was unable to speak there. There was no major announcement following the meeting with colleague Joe Biden, although the deployment of some ATACMS units had already been announced at that time.
Therefore, the impact is currently uncertain. Precision missiles fired by the American Himars system have made a big difference in favor of the Ukrainians, but still the course of the war is not in their favor.
Aside from widespread doubts about the West’s willingness to continue rearming Kiev, the counteroffensive that Zelensky launched on June 4 failed to achieve any major successes. As the weather worsens with the arrival of the European winter, it is likely that Ukraine will have nothing to show after receiving armaments, tanks and training from NATO [aliança militar liderada pelos EUA].
To complicate matters, Russians on the ground launched a new offensive in the Donetsk region last week, which, along with advances in the northeast of the country, threatens to capture Ukrainian forces. Concern sparked in Kiev was high, but according to the Institute for the Study of War (US), the pace of Moscow’s attacks has slowed this week, which may indicate that the action has lost traction.