Joe Biden’s White House is prepared to send long-range tactical missiles to Ukraine if Congress approves a new funding package, according to a US media report on Monday.
Citing two unnamed officials, NBC News said that the administration was willing to send a variant of the missiles – known as Atacms (army tactical missile systems) – if a new $60bn aid package approved by the Senate, but held up for now by congressional Republicans, becomes law.
The report came as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia was exploiting delays in aid to Ukraine.
He was speaking on Monday after visiting the frontline in Kupiansk, according to Reuters, an area recaptured by Ukraine in 2022, but where Russian forces have been active in recent months.
“There is now an extremely difficult situation in several parts of the frontline, precisely where Russian troops have concentrated maximum reserves,” Zelenskiy said.
“They are taking advantage of delays in aid to Ukraine and this is a very sensitive matter. Artillery shortages, the need for frontline air defence and for longer-range weapons.”
The US approved the transfer of a short-range variant of the missiles in October after Kyiv offered assurances that they would not be used to strike inside Russia itself. Zelenskiy later said that the weapons had “proven themselves”.
Newer variations of Atacms that the Biden administration wants to send to Ukraine have a maximum range of nearly 200 miles (300km), typically carrying cluster bomblets, allowing Ukrainian forces to strike the Crimean peninsula.
According to officials who spoke with NBC anonymously, it was possible that the US would request that Nato allies provide the missiles to Ukraine against the expectation that the American government would refill depleted stockpiles.
Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov, said in recent days that the fall of Avdiivka to Russian forces had shown that supplies of “long-range weapons are needed to destroy enemy formations”.
A US state department readout ahead of a meeting between the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, in Munich said it anticipated the diplomats would discuss “pressing” issues related to “ammunition, air defense, [and] long-range capabilities”.
Kuleba later said he had discussed the supply of long-range Atacms with his US counterpart at a meeting on Saturday, calling the system “an important symbol” to Ukrainians who had been defending themselves from the invasion Russia launched in February 2022.
“There is only one way to destroy Russian capabilities in Ukraine. It’s to hit deep into the occupied territories, bypassing Russian radio-electronic warfare and interceptors,” he said.
“If you want to hit behind the lines, disrupt their logistics and supplies, destroy their depots of ammunition, you can do it only with long-range missiles,” he added.
In October, after the system was used to hit helicopters at two airfields in Russian-occupied territory, Vladimir Putin called delivery of tactical ballistic missiles to Kyiv “another mistake by the United States”.
The Russian president claimed that delivery of the missiles would “not do Ukraine any good either. It will simply prolong [their] agony.
“War is war,” Putin said. “And, of course, I have said that [Atacms] pose a threat. It goes without saying. But what counts most is that they are completely unable to drastically change the situation along the line of contact. It’s impossible.”
A spokesperson for the US defense department confirmed to NBC that there was no funding available to send more military equipment to Ukraine.
“Without a supplemental [funding bill], we do not currently have a security assistance package to give to Ukraine,” the spokesperson said. “At the same time, I won’t speculate on the contents of any future packages if a supplemental were to be passed. We will let you know if this changes and if we have a new package to announce.”
On Monday, Canada said it would donate more than 800 SkyRanger R70 multi-mission Unmanned Aerial Systems to Ukraine, Canada’s defence minister, Bill Blair, said.
“Today’s announcement ensures that Ukraine has the drones it needs to detect and identify targets which are critical to Ukraine’s ongoing fight. Canada will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Blair said.
