President Zelensky reveals US secretly transferred long-range missiles to Ukraine
(Baonghean.vn) - Kiev thanked Washington after saying they used these missiles to attack Russia.
According to RT, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky revealed on October 17 that Ukraine used long-range ATACMS missiles provided by the US in its conflict with Russia.
Earlier the same day, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Washington had "secretly" provided the above weapon to Kiev.
“Today I am especially grateful to America,” Mr Zelensky said in a videotaped speech. “Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. And they are being implemented very precisely – ATACMS has proven itself.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military issued a statement claiming to have “carried out targeted attacks on enemy airfields and helicopters” in the Lugansk and Zaporozhye regions.
According to WSJ, this is the first time Ukraine has used the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). The source, citing people familiar with the matter, said that a “small number” of these missiles were “secretly transferred” to Ukraine in recent days.
Also according to WSJ, ATACMS missiles have a range of up to 305 km, but the models provided to Kiev have a range of about 160 km.
In late September, the US media also speculated that the Biden administration would transfer to Kiev a number of ATACMS equipped with cluster munitions, but this was never officially announced.
The missiles were launched from High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers, which the US supplied to Kiev last year. In December 2022, the WSJ reported that the US had “secretly modified” these HIMARS launchers to disable the use of ATACMS. According to anonymous sources speaking to Western media, Washington had previously hesitated to supply Kiev with weapons capable of striking Russian territory.
The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to confirm or deny the reports of Ukraine deploying ATACMS. However, senior officials in the Zaporozhye region said that the Ukrainians used both ATACMS equipped with cluster munitions and ground-launched small diameter bombs (GLSDB) to attack Berdyansk.
Dmitry Rogozin - former head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos and now a Zaporozhye Senator - even pinpointed the ATACMS model, which uses M74 cluster munitions.
Moscow has repeatedly warned the West that sending weapons to Ukraine increases the risk of direct confrontation. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month that “no weapon can change the balance of power on the battlefield.”
