By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent
KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – The United States confirmed Wednesday that it secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine for use in its conflict with Russia.
The missiles, which Kyiv already used twice, were contained in a $300 million military aid package for Ukraine that U.S. President Joe Biden approved on March 12, U.S. sources said.
The confirmation came while Biden signed into law an aid package providing military assistance to Ukraine after the Senate passed a bill containing nearly $61 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Additionally, $26 billion in military aid will be transferred to Israel and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific.
However, before the aid package was passed, the U.S. already sent ATACMS, short for Army Tactical Missile System, at President Biden’s order, said U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel.
The missiles were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, launched against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian front lines, U.S. officials said.
Ukraine reportedly used the weapon a second time overnight against Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine.
‘SIGNIFICANT NUMBER’
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that a “significant number” of the missiles had been sent to Ukraine and said “we will send more.”
U.S. officials declined to say how many missiles had been delivered.
Yet they have a longer striking distance — up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) than the version of the weapon with a range of roughly 165 kilometers (103 miles) provided by the U.S. in October.
“We did not announce this at the onset to maintain operational security for Ukraine at their request,” Patel said.
Yet the Pentagon initially opposed the long-range missile deployment, fearing the loss of the missiles from the American stockpile would hurt U.S. military readiness, according to sources familiar with their thinking.
There were also concerns that Ukraine would use them to attack targets deep inside Russia.
However, Russia’s use of North Korean-supplied long-range ballistic missiles against Ukraine in December and January led to a change of heart, a U.S. official said.
WARNING RUSSIA
Another factor in U.S. decision-making was Russia’s targeting of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, added the official speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We warned Russia about those things,” the official said. “They renewed their targeting.”
Also high on Ukraine’s shopping list is ammunition, with the U.S. pledging to ramp up production of shells from 30,000 a month to 100,000 by next summer.
Ukraine used over 2 million shells during the 26-month war, a rate of more than 75,000 a month, said General James Mingus, the Army’s vice chief of staff.
Kyiv how hopes it will soon receive more weapons as Russia pushes forward in a war that has already killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people, officials say.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
The ‘Days of Repentance’ operation launched by Israel against Iran in late October targeted and destroyed a highly secretive nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, according to Axios.
A United Nations committee has agreed to tackle “hate speech” and “misinformation” globally through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and media, despite worries the approach may “stifle pluralistic debate.”
Christians in Myanmar’s Rakhine state face continued persecution by the country’s Buddhist military junta (Tatmadaw), which has proved itself violently hostile to believers and recently imposed new restrictions on church services, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Brief scuffles broke out, and soccer fans whistled and booed as the Israeli anthem played at the start of the France-Israel match in Paris following a pogrom against Jews in the Netherlands, officials said Friday.
China’s President Xi Jinping has inaugurated a controversial massive port on the edge of Peru’s coastal desert that locals fear will leave many of them without a hopeful future.
With pornography increasingly and freely available to minors on the internet, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) has called on the Canadian parliament to support a bill that would hold pornography platforms accountable to “ensure child sexual abuse materials and intimate images shared without consent are not uploaded to their sites,” Christian Daily International (CDI) reports.
Tensions between Iran and Israel remain high as Tehran’s military pledged a strong response to Israel’s strikes last month. At the same time, the UN’s atomic watchdog is focused on preventing nuclear escalation, with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi urging that Iran’s nuclear facilities, including Fordow and Natanz, should not be targeted as he is scheduled to visit the country.