U.S. secretly supplied long-range missiles to Ukraine

A missile soars skyward in a desert setting, leaving a fiery contrail and clouds of smoke on the ground

By Lolita C. Baldor and Tara Copp

April 24, 2024 Updated 1:11 PM PT

WASHINGTON —

Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday.

Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give Ukraine nearly double the striking distance — up to 190 miles — of the midrange version of the weapon that it received from the U.S. in October. One of the officials said the U.S. is providing more of these missiles as part of a $61-billion military aid package for Ukraine signed by President Biden on Wednesday.

Biden approved delivery of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in February, and then in March the U.S. included a “significant” number of them in a $300-million aid package, one official said.

The two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delivery before it became public, would not provide the exact number of missiles given last month or in the latest aid package, which totals about $1 billion.

Ukraine has been forced to ration its weapons and is facing increasing Russian attacks. Ukraine had been begging for the long-range system because the missiles provide a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range.

Information about the delivery was kept so quiet that lawmakers and others — who in recent days have been demanding that the U.S. send the weapons — were unaware the missiles were already in Ukraine.

For months, the U.S. resisted sending the long-range missiles out of concern that Kyiv could use them to hit deep into Russian territory, further escalating the conflict. That was a key reason the administration instead sent the midrange version, with a range of roughly 100 miles, in October.

Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the White House and military planners looked carefully at the risks of providing long-range missiles to Ukraine and determined that the time was right to provide them now.

He said in an interview that long-range weapons will help Ukraine take out Russian logistics nodes and troop concentrations that are not on the front lines. Grady declined to identify what specific weapons were being provided but said they will be “very disruptive if used properly, and I’m confident they will be.”

Like many of the other sophisticated weapons systems provided to Ukraine, the Biden administration weighed whether their use would risk further escalating the conflict. The administration is continuing to make clear that the weapons must not be used to hit targets in Russia — only those in Ukrainian territory, according to one of the U.S. officials. At the State Department, spokesman Vedant Patel said Wednesday that Biden directed his national security team to specify that the ATACMS be used within Ukrainian territory.

“I think the time is right, and the boss [Biden] made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now,” Grady said Wednesday. “I think it was a very well-considered decision, and we really wrung it out. But again, any time you introduce a new system, any change, into a battlefield, you have to think through the escalatory nature of it.”

Ukrainian officials haven’t publicly acknowledged the receipt or use of long-range ATACMS. But in thanking Congress for passing the new aid bill Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted on the social platform X that “Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, artillery and air defense are extremely important tools for the quick restoration of a just peace.”

One of the U.S. officials said the Biden administration warned Russia last year that if Moscow used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to Kyiv. Russia got some of those weapons from North Korea and has used them on the battlefield in Ukraine, said the official, prompting the Biden administration to greenlight the new long-range missiles.

The U.S. refused to confirm that the long-range missiles had been delivered until they were actually used on the battlefield and Kyiv leaders approved the public release. One official said the weapons were used last week to strike the airfield in Dzhankoi, a city on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. They were used again overnight east of the occupied city of Berdyansk.

Videos on social media last week showed the explosions at the airfield, but officials at the time would not confirm it was the ATACMS.

Ukraine’s first use of the weapon came as political gridlock in Congress had delayed approval of a $95-billion foreign aid package for months. Facing acute weapons shortages, Ukraine has been rationing its munitions as U.S. funding was delayed.

With the war now in its third year, Russia used the delay in U.S. weapons deliveries and its own edge in firepower and personnel to step up attacks across eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — dropped from planes from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

The midrange missiles, and some of the long-range ones, carry cluster munitions that open in the air when fired, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead. Others sent recently have a single warhead.

One critical factor in the March decision to send the weapons was the U.S. Army’s ability to begin replacing the older ATACMS. The Army is now buying the Precision Strike Missile, so it is more comfortable sending ATACMS from its stockpiles to Ukraine, the official said.

Baldor and Copp write for the Associated Press. AP writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.