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In response to
"If anyone has a WSJ account and can do a c/p for me on this article, I'd greatly appreciate it. TIA -- (link)"
by
crash davis 😺
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Here, my love.
Posted by
David (aka David)
Sep 15 '23, 10:18
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"Ukraine Closer to Acquiring ATACMS Long-Range Missiles From U.S. This Fall
Biden administration officials say they are taking a fresh look, but no presidential decision so far
WASHINGTON—The U.S. is moving closer to providing Ukraine with a ground-based missile Kyiv has long sought to conduct longer-range strikes at Russian forces.
President Biden has yet to approve the transfer. But administration officials said they are taking a fresh look at supplying the Army’s Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, this fall to boost Ukraine’s counteroffensive as its forces make slow progress toward overcoming Russia’s extensive defenses in the south.
Ukraine has long appealed for the ATACMS, a surface-to-surface missile system that can strike well behind Russian lines. The U.S. has manufactured several variants of ATACMS, which are fired from a mobile launcher and can strike between 100 and 190 miles away, depending on the model.
“Our position all along has been we will get Ukraine the capabilities that will enable it to succeed on the battlefield,” deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told reporters Sunday, declining to say whether the system would be provided. “And we will continue to assess the situation on the ground and make decisions based on that.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to visit Washington next week to address Congress and meet with Biden following a stop at the United Nations General Assembly, according to people familiar with the plans. The White House declined to comment on the expected visit.
Zelensky said in a CNN interview that aired Sunday he planned to press Biden to provide the missile and hoped that Kyiv could have the weapon in the autumn.
The Pentagon has long been wary of providing the system, which can be fired by the Himars launcher the U.S. provided last year, arguing that the U.S. military had a limited inventory of the weapons.
“From a military standpoint, we have relatively few ATACMS, we do have to make sure that we maintain our own munitions inventories, as well,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Defense One in March. “And the range of the weapon—I think there’s a little bit of overstating of what an ATACMS can do and can’t do. You’re looking at a single shot, so think of a musket versus a repeating rifle.”
Russia has also cautioned Washington that providing longer-range missiles could cross a “red line,” spurring fears in some quarters about the risk that the conflict in Ukraine could escalate into a clash between Moscow and Washington.
Yet several factors, U.S. officials say, have prompted the Biden administration to give fresh consideration to providing the missile.
Plans under review within the administration call for providing a limited number of the missiles, which could ease Pentagon concerns about eating deeply into U.S. stocks, officials said.
The U.S. has previously secured assurances that Ukraine wouldn’t use American-provided weapons to attack inside Russia, and any provisions of ATACMS is expected to be contingent on a similar promise.
‘Shoot and scoot’
With the British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which were provided to Ukraine this year, Kyiv has shown that it is willing to restrict its use of Western weapons to its sovereign territory, instead of using them to strike deep into Russia.
Yet another factor: Ukraine’s stock of the longer-range missiles the West has provided might be dwindling.
The U.K. has a limited inventory of Storm Shadow missiles, which are launched by aircraft. France also has been providing its version of the system, known as the Scalp.
Storm Shadows can travel more than 150 miles, according to the missile’s European manufacturer. But Ukrainian officials have said a ground-based system like ATACMS would give them more ways to rapidly strike logistics, communications and other facilities inside Russian-held Ukrainian territory. Because the launchers are mobile, they can quickly move after firing—“shoot and scoot”—to better elude a Russian retaliatory attack.
Another long-range system the U.S. has said it would provide, the ground-launched small-diameter bomb with a range of about 90 miles, is months away from being transferred, officials said.
Russian forces have spent months laying mines, digging trenches and preparing defenses along 600 miles in southern Ukraine. Those lines still present a formidable obstacle for Ukraine’s forces, which are seeking to cut, or at least pressure, the strip of Russian-held land that connects southwestern Russia to Crimea.
While the ATACMS wouldn’t directly help Ukrainian troops breach those defenses, officials hope they would enable Ukraine to strike at some of the logistics hubs and headquarters Russian forces need to hold captured Ukrainian territory.
Earlier this week, Ukraine demonstrated its ability to strike deeper into Russian territory with an attack on the Russian navy’s dry docks in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, damaging a Russian submarine and a large landing ship. Ukraine hinted that the operation, one of the most spectacular blows to Russian naval power of the 18-month-long war, was carried out using Storm Shadows.
And on Thursday, Kyiv said its drones and Ukrainian-made cruise missiles destroyed one of Russia’s most advanced air-defense systems in Crimea, striking a fresh blow on the occupied peninsula that serves as a critical logistical base for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Some U.S. lawmakers have pressed the White House to provide the ATACMS system. In June, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a bipartisan resolution urging the Biden administration to immediately transfer them to Kyiv.
“By not giving Ukraine the weapons it needs to win this war, the administration is prolonging the conflict and costing countless Ukrainian lives,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas).
Biden said in May that sending ATACMS was “still in play.” In June, officials hinted the U.S. was considering providing ATACMS to Ukraine.
Andrew Restuccia contributed to this article.
Write to Nancy A. Youssef at [email protected], Michael R. Gordon at [email protected] and Vivian Salama at [email protected]"
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