According to the AP, Ukraine last week bombed a military airport in Russian-annexed Crimea for the first time using tactical ballistic missiles with a longer range, which were secretly supplied to it by the United States. To strike against Russian troops, the Ukrainians also deployed them on Wednesday night, unnamed US officials told AP.
At nearly 300 kilometers, these new missiles have almost twice the range of those the United States has been supplying Ukraine since last October, and Kiev has been keen on them. According to one unnamed official, Washington will provide more as part of the military aid package that US President Joe Biden signed into law on Wednesday. The AP agency writes about it.
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Biden approved the delivery of long-range ATACMS missiles in early March, and a “significant” number of them were included in the $300 million military aid package announced by the United States at the time. The AP notes that the unnamed officials did not specify how many missiles were included in the March military aid package or how many of them are included in the current one worth around a billion dollars.
Ukraine has been forced to implement arms rationing as it faces intensifying Russian attacks. It has pleaded for long-range missiles, as they will allow it to engage Russian targets at long distances and Ukrainian troops will be able to stay out of range of Russian weapons.
For months, the United States has resisted Kiev’s insistence that it send the weapons, fearing that the Ukrainian military could use them to launch attacks deep inside Russian territory, escalating the conflict. For this reason, the American administration sent medium-range tactical ballistic missiles with a range of about 160 kilometers to the Ukrainians last October.
But an unnamed U.S. military official said Wednesday that the White House and military officials have carefully considered the risks of providing long-range missiles to Ukraine and have concluded that now is the right time to do so.
In an interview with the AP agency, the deputy head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Christopher Grady, said that long-range weapons will help Ukraine eliminate Russian logistics hubs and places where soldiers are concentrated and are not on the front line. He declined to say what the weapons were specifically, but said that “if deployed well, they will have great destructive effects” and that he believed they would be used well.
Weapons deliveries shrouded in mystery
Ukrainian officials have not yet officially acknowledged that their country has received long-range ATACMS missiles. However, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked US lawmakers for approving the military aid package on Tuesday, he wrote on the X social network that “Ukraine’s capabilities in long-range weapons, artillery and air defense are extremely important tools for the rapid restoration of a just peace.”
One of the unnamed officials the AP spoke to 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 military equipment to Kiev. Russia then received a number of these missiles from North Korea and is deploying them during the war in Ukraine, the official said. This prompted the US government to give the green light to their delivery to Ukraine.
According to US sources, the Ukrainian army used them last week to attack the Dzhankoy military airport in Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine ten years ago. The Ukrainians used them again on Wednesday night during the attack on Berdyansk in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporozhye region.
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Tags: Ukraine blew hidden trump card Secret weapons shook Crimea Zelensky mentioned important detail
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