Perhaps the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington on Thursday has had some practical, or even decisive, consequence on the course of the war unleashed by Russia’s invasion of that country. The White House appears to be about to decide in favor of delivering a limited number of ATACMS missiles, which have a range of action between 72 and 305 kilometers – depending on the versions – to Kiev, according to various US media reports. citing sources from the Government of that country.
The ATACMS are similar to the HIMARS, which stopped the advance of Russian troops in Ukraine in its tracks when they reached the front in July 2022, and which became the most feared weapon for the Russians for the next six months. Its big difference is its range, since the HIMARS only reach a maximum of 83 kilometers. The US has gone so far as to deliver ‘caped’ HIMARS launchers so that the Ukrainians cannot use them to fire longer-range missiles.
Ukraine has continued to launch HIMARS daily. But its effectiveness has decreased. Russia, contrary to what many believe, “has a great capacity for technological innovation, and that has allowed it to make the HIMARS lose precision,” according to an executive of a US military technology company with a strong presence in Ukraine, explains to EL MUNDO. who prefers to remain anonymous. At the same time, Russian air defense has been improving, to the point of being able to shoot down missiles. What Moscow has not managed to do is destroy a single one of the shuttle trucks from which they are fired. Meanwhile, the GLSBD gliding bombs, which have a range of 200 kilometers, promised by the US to Ukraine eleven months ago, have still not arrived. For now, Kiev’s only long-range weapons are its own domestically-made missiles and drones, as well as several hundred Franco-British Storm Shadow/SCALPs, an insufficient number considering that since receiving the HIMARS, Ukraine has released 20,000.
ATACMS is like the older brother of HIMARS. The range of its most advanced version is more than triple, its speed is greater and, if the first is guided by GPS, this one is guided by GPS and, in addition, by inertial navigation. All of this makes it more difficult to intercept. But its greatest advantage for Ukrainians is its radius of action. With the ATACMS, kyiv will be able to strike without problems and with a weapon that is in principle invulnerable any part of the territory that Russia still occupies.
The much more complex and risky attacks, with Franco-British Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles, with drones and with nationally manufactured anti-ship missiles, will no longer be the only way for Ukraine to bomb, for example, Crimea, where the barracks was blown up this Friday. general of the Russian flora in the Black Sea. The ATACMS, in addition, are launched from the same trucks as the HIMARS, so there will be no need for the meager Ukrainian Air Force to risk its few devices and pilots as it has to do every time it fires the Storm Shadow/SCALP.
An important detail is that the US would send Ukraine, according to the Washington Post, ATACMS with cluster munitions. That is a decision that, if carried out, would be controversial, because cluster bombs open and, in turn, release dozens of small explosives, some of which do not explode, thus becoming a permanent threat that lasts years or decades for civilians returning to live in combat zones. For this reason, several EU countries have thousands of ATCMS with cluster munitions stored for a decade and a half and with no intention of using them again. Each missile delivers between 350 and 950 bombs, making it extremely effective in attacking concentrations of troops and material, but less effective in targeting highly protected targets, such as command centers. The United States delivered cluster artillery howitzers to Ukraine in July, when that country had practically exhausted its stockpile of conventional ammunition sent by South Korea and the West found its arsenals so empty that it could not replace those losses. Since then, the Ukrainian offensive in the south of the country has been progressively advancing, something that the US believes is due in part to those shells.
