The Ukrainians received long-range missiles in advance in a secret delivery and are already using them

A week ago it was the Crimean Dzhankoy airport, and on Wednesday night it was the Russian positions near Berdyansk in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporozhye region.

The new missiles, which Ukraine has long requested, allow hitting targets up to 300 kilometers away, which is almost twice the operational range of the medium-range missiles that Ukraine received from the US last October. Additional long-range missiles will arrive in Ukraine as part of the aid package Biden signed on Wednesday, according to an unnamed US official.

The American president approved the delivery of long-range ATACMS missiles already at the beginning of March, and a “significant” number of them were included in the $300 million (almost 7.1 billion crowns) military aid package that the US announced at the time. According to the AP, its source 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.

Photo: Lockheed Martin

Launching an ATACMS missile

Washington has long resisted Kiev’s insistence that it send it long-range missiles. He feared a possible escalation of the conflict if Ukraine used them deep in Russia. However, one of the sources of the AP agency recalled that the Biden administration warned Moscow last year that if it acquires long-range ballistic missiles abroad and uses them in Ukraine, Washington will provide the same technology to Kiev under the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. “Russia has acquired a number of these ballistic missiles from North Korea and is deploying them during the war in Ukraine,” the source said. “This prompted the US government to give the green light to the delivery of such missiles to Ukraine.”

Biden wants to supply the Ukrainians with long-range missiles. So they can hit Crimea

America

Christopher Grady, the deputy head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said according to the AP that the long-range weapons will help Ukraine destroy Russian logistics hubs and places where troops are concentrated and are not on the front line. He declined to say what the weapons were specifically, but said that if they are deployed well — and he believes they will be — they will have “great destructive effects.”

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.”