WASHINGTON — The United States has quietly delivered a small number of long-range ballistic missiles that Ukraine said it urgently needed and that President Joe Biden promised last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Tuesday, saying they were used on the battlefield against Russia and “executed very accurately.”
”Today I express special gratitude to the United States,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address, adding that the missiles “have proven themselves.”
The U.S. has refused to discuss the delivery publicly, but officials familiar with the move also confirmed it earlier in the day. Fewer than a dozen of the missiles got into Ukraine within the last few days, said officials. Their arrival at the warfront gives Ukraine a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter before an official announcement and spoke Tuesday on the condition of anonymity.
The delivery of the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, was shrouded in secrecy, with the expectation that the first public acknowledgment would come when the missiles were used on the battlefield. That intense secrecy is a marked change from previous U.S. weapons sent by the Biden administration. In nearly all other cases, the U.S. has publicly announced its decision prior to the weapons and equipment being shipped overseas.
Because of lingering U.S. concerns about escalating tensions with Russia, the ATACMS version that went to Ukraine will have a shorter range than the maximum distance the missiles can have. While some versions of the missiles can go as far as about 180 miles (about 300 kilometers), the ones sent to Ukraine have a shorter range and carry cluster munitions, which, when fired, open in the air, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead. According to a U.S. official, the ones delivered to Ukraine have a maximum range of a bit more than 100 miles (roughly 160 kilometers).
Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claimed that a nighttime attack on targets in eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed nine Russian helicopters and other military equipment and personnel.