US-Ukraine arms airlift started, Kyiv secretly received a long-range missile

Immediately after President Joe Biden signed an aid package totaling 56 billion euros for Ukraine, the military airlift got underway. “We will send equipment to Ukraine in the coming hours,” Biden said. “Right now, there are planes in the air with equipment destined for Ukraine,” Secretary of Defense William LaPlante said of the US’s largest arms shipment in months.

The flow of weapons, made possible by Republican support in Congress, should give the Ukrainian army another chance against the Russians. In addition to artillery shells to stop Russian attacks, the Americans are also sending air defense weapons, anti-tank missiles and armored vehicles. A notable newcomer is the long-range version of the Atacms, a missile that Kyiv has wanted for a long time.

Biden has so far refused to deliver this variant – with a range of 300 kilometers – because he feared that the Ukrainians would attack Russian territory with it. Last year, as a compromise, the president decided to send an Atacms version that would not go further than about 100 miles. But it now appears that Biden changed tack in February. In March, the Ukrainians secretly received a “significant number” of the long-distance version. The US is silent on the exact number. Washington also does not want to say anything about how many Atacms are currently on the way.

Crimean bridge

The four-meter-long missile has brought all important Russian ground targets in Ukraine, such as headquarters, logistics bases and large troop formations, within range of the Ukrainian army. US officials confirm that Kyiv has already deployed the Atacms. Last week, an important air base in Crimea, near Dzhankoy, was bombarded. This base is used by Russia to shoot at advancing Ukrainian armored units with Ka-52 attack helicopters.

The shelling at Dzhankoy is said to have destroyed the air defense batteries, making the base vulnerable to further Ukrainian attacks. With the missile, which heads towards its target at a speed of three times the speed of sound, three hundred to almost a thousand small bombs can be spread over a large area. This makes the missile ideal for destroying helicopters and aircraft on the ground.

It is not clear whether any Ka-52s were knocked out during the attack. The Russian High Command must now fear that other important Russian bases in Crimea will also become targets of the devastating Atacms missiles. In addition, Ukraine now also has a weapon that makes it possible to destroy one of the most important targets in Crimea, the Crimean Bridge. This bridge from 2018, once built as a prestige project of the Kremlin after the annexation of Crimea, connects the peninsula with the Russian mainland.

European cruise missile

There is now a lot of speculation in the US but also in Ukraine as to whether Kyiv will target the bridge in order to isolate Crimea. A version of the Atacms has an explosive force of more than 200 kilos, enough to hit the Crimean Bridge. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham expects no different. “We made sure they had access to these new weapons,” Graham said.

If President Volodymyr Zelensky approves an operation targeting the bridge and it proves successful, it will be one of Russia’s biggest defeats to date. The Kremlin has been warning the US since last year not to deliver the long-range version of the Atacms to Kyiv. If the deployment of the missile hits the Russians hard militarily in the coming months, the pressure will increase on Germany to also adopt the European Taurus cruise missile.

This has an even greater range than the Atacms, about 500 kilometers. However, German Chancellor Olav Scholz is refusing to deliver the Taurus because, like Biden last year, he is afraid that Kyiv will target targets in Russia.