US is close to providing long-range ATACMS systems to Ukraine – WSJ
The United States came close to making a decision to provide Ukraine with ATACMS long-range tactical missile systems.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, referring to US and European officials, as European Pravda reported
Details: According to European and US officials, providing ATACMS to Ukraine still needs to be approved "at the highest level".
But they have seen signs that the previously reluctant White House changed its position and came to understand "the urgent need to support Ukraine in its struggle in the coming weeks".
As a senior Ukrainian defence official told The Wall Street Journal, in recent weeks "Kyiv has received positive signs that the US has changed its position on the ATACMS system".
The army’s ATACMS tactical missile systems are surface-to-surface missiles with a range of about 300 kilometres, roughly four times the range of the missiles used by the mobile HIMARS systems that the US began sending to Ukraine last year.
Background:
- Earlier, Politico reported that the Biden administration explained its reluctance to hand over longer-range ATACMS missiles to the Ukrainian side to the fact that, in this case, there may be too few of them left in US Army stockpiles.
- Meanwhile, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs supported bipartisan resolution H.Res. 488, calling on the Biden administration to immediately provide Ukraine with ATACMS missiles.
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