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The United States does not rule out the possibility of providing Kiev with extended-range ATACMS missiles, White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby said on February 22.
“We never took ATACMS off the table. They are still part and parcel of the discussions that we’ve been having with Ukraine,” the senior official told reporters at a briefing.
Later, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said that the Department of Defense will allow for the possibility to supply ATACMS missiles to Kiev, but only after the U.S. Congress allocates funds to support Ukraine.
“We are considering sending [weapons], that Ukraine’s top priority or priorities are still Air Defense artillery ammunition. … I don’t have anything to preview for you … But we certainly want to make sure that we’re getting Ukraine what it needs. We can only do that when we have the supplemental passed in Congress,” she said.
When asked whether ATACMS missiles can be included in the new assistance package, Singh said “we are not taking anything off the table.”
The MGM-140 is a tactical ballistic missile that can be fired from the tracked M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and the wheeled M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), both are already in service with Kiev forces.
Commenting on Kirby and Singh’s remarks, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said that the U.S. Does not impose any bans on allies supplying any weapons to Kiev.
“Again, I’m not aware of the US preventing allies from sending weapons to Ukraine,” she said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, answering a question about the possible transfer of extended-range ATACMS missiles to Kiev.
Nevertheless, Nuland stressed that she would not comment on the choice of targets for strikes by the Ukrainian armed forces or talk about whether Washington gives any advice to Kiev on this matter.
“But again, I’m not going to comment on whether these choices that Ukraine makes about where it strikes, or about the advice that we give them,” she said.
In October 2023, a year and eight months after the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, Kiev forces received a limited number of ATACMS from the U.S. However, the missiles were of the older M39 Block I verison, which has a range of 165 kilometers. This version is armed with a cluster warhead with 950 M74 bomblets.
Kiev forces used the missiles to target Berdiansk Airport as well as several gatherings and ammunition dumps of the Russian military in the special military operation zone. Some of the missiles were intercepted and the damage caused by the strikes was very limited.
Last February, NBC News reported that the U.S. President Joe Biden is considering providing Ukraine with extended-range ATACMS.
The broadcast didn’t specify which version could be supplied to Kiev forces. The U.S. could supply the M39A1 Block I which armed with a cluster warhead with 300 M74 bomblets but has a range of 300 kilometers, or with the M48 QRU and M57 Block IA Unitary versions which are both armed with WAU-23/B unitary warheads and have a range of 270 and 300 kilometers respectively.
Kiev forces could use extended-range ATACMS missiles to attack targets in the Crimean Peninsula, or deeper in Russian territory.
Such attacks would be a major escalation. Still, the U.S. and its allies appear to be willing to take the risk. This is likely due to Ukraine’s recent defeats in the battlefield, from the failure of the spring counteroffensive to the recent fall of Avdeevka city.
