In a Wednesday interview with Fox News, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin repeated a longstanding White House mantra that there is no pressing need for Washington to permit Kyiv to use US-made ATACMS missiles to strike airfields deep inside Russia. Kyiv wants to hit Russian bases of bombers using long-range glide bombs to hit Ukrainian homes and businesses from outside the range of its air defenses.
“Isn’t this just extending the war by not giving them those permissions?” Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin asked Austin, during a Rome, Italy visit.
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Austin responded: “The Russians have already moved their aircraft out of the range of, beyond the range of ATACMS. But Ukraine has the ability to produce its own drones now and they are highly effective. We have seen them conduct attacks that are 400 kilometers [250 miles] beyond the border. And even further.”
Another Fox News item quoted an unnamed US official stating the White House and the Pentagon have judged Ukrainian use of ATACMS missiles deep into Russia, against any target, would not really help Ukraine and would only escalate US-Russia tensions.
The ATACMS Missile
This weapon can be fired from two artillery systems the US and European states have provided Ukraine: the tracked M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and the wheeled M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).
The solid fueled missile flies at supersonic (Mach 3) reaching hypersonic (Mach5) speeds on final target approach. It can carry several types of warhead, one which contains around 950 baseball-sized sub-munitions that are ejected to saturate an area about the size of half a typical football pitch. It is designed to hit “soft” targets including logistic vehicles, fuel storage, aircraft, or people.
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Plans to produce the drones in Ukraine have been in discussion since early 2022, though details on the latest agreement remain undisclosed and it’s unclear how far the plans have progressed.
The ATACMS can also carry unitary warheads designed to penetrate buildings and bunkers, but these have not been seen in Ukraine.
Older versions of ATACMS have a range of about 160 kilometers (100 miles), while the more modern ones have a range of 300 kilometers (190 miles). Both weapons are, according to open sources, able to hit within 5-10 meters from their intended target. By the standards of ballistic missiles, this is envelope-pushing precision.
Ukraine first employed short-range ATACMS in October 2023, with open sources suggesting the US has probably turned over to Ukraine 50-100 missiles in total.
Current Ukrainian long-range capability
Kyiv has largely fired ATACMS against Russian airfields near the Azov Sea, in Crimea, and in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region. Ukraine’s military later claimed these destroyed several Russian aircraft.
Ukrainian long-range strikes, using domestically produced drones and weapons provided by countries other than the US, have become more effective, forcing Russian aerospace forces to withdraw their strike aircraft deeper into Russia to get out of range.
Russia effectively uses aircraft-delivered glide bombs launched from outside the range of Ukrainian air defenses, primarily from its modern Su-34 (NATO: Fullback) aircraft.
According to Ukrainian army intelligence these aircraft and their support networks are, as Austin has said, based in Russia outside ATACMS range, close to Oryol, Lipetsk, Volgograd, and Kalach.
Where ATACMS is not appropriate to strike airfields or other military targets at long range, Ukraine has resorted to its domestically produced drones. A key drawback to the use of drones to hit an airfield is their relatively slow speed, which gives pilots plenty of time to get aircraft out of the way of the incoming strike. Aware of this, Ukraine has focused on attacking the infrastructure and logistic support elements for Russia’s air assets.
Besides airfields, Ukraine’s burgeoning drone bombardment campaign has sought out Russian logistics nodes, headquarters and particularly aerial bomb and missile storage sites along with pilot and support staff accommodations.
Storage sites for the dreaded Iranian Shahed kamikaze strike drones which Russia has hurled by the dozen against Ukrainian air space almost nightly for months, are a particularly high priority target. The launch sites are well-known, but Ukrainian drones are too slow to hit the Russian operators or on-site Iranian advisors preparing the strike.
Some Ukrainian drone strikes have been spectacular: On Sept. 18 several kamikaze drones hit a munitions depot near the city of Tver, setting off a chain-reaction of bunker detonations powerful enough to register as low-grade earthquakes.
Ukraine has more recently used its limited ATACMS stocks on other prime targets. A four-missile salvo hit a Russian training base in the occupied Luhansk region on May 1, killing more than 100 Russian soldiers and wounding hundreds more.
Drones versus ATACMS
According to research published by the Ukrainian analytical group Texty.Com on Oct. 22, close to two-thirds of Ukrainian strikes against all targets in Russia struck within 200 kilometers (125 miles) of the Russian-Ukraine border, which would be well within the range of ATACMS missiles, have been carried out by domestically manufactured drones.
The most powerful Ukrainian medium- and long-range drones, particularly the Bobr tail-prop aircraft and the jet-propelled Paliyanitsiya aircraft, carry unitary warheads of 20-50 kilograms (45-110 pounds). Russian authorities routinely report “all drones shot down” following strikes. Ukrainian drone operators usually plan on one out of three drones getting through to a target against Russian anti-aircraft weapons and jamming.
In video of the devastating May 1 strike, three ATACMS missiles appeared to function perfectly, and one seemingly failed to detonate. There was no Russian defensive fire and soldiers caught in the cluster munition pattern appear surprised.
On Oct. 15 Russia launched a reported 130 Shahed drones at mostly civilian Ukrainian targets. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an Oct. 16 national television statement that Kyiv needs increased quantities of modern, long-range strike weapons to degrade Russia’s capacity to make war, deter Russian aggression in the future, and stop Russian bombardment of Ukrainian homes and businesses.
US President Joe Biden told reporters on Oct. 18 the White House has “no plan” to give Ukraine a green light to use long-range US weapons against targets deep inside Russia. They wouldn’t affect the war in Ukraine enough to make the transfer worthwhile, and America is a superpower that must factor Russian reaction into its calculations, he said.
On the drone front, overnight Oct. 17-18 the Ukrainian Air Force reported that at least 135 Shahed drones and drones of an unknown type attacked Ukraine from launch sites in Russia’s Kursk, Oryol, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, and Krasnodar Krai regions. Drones attacked at least ten Ukrainian regions, two flew into Belarusian air space, and one violated NATO air space flying at least 14 kilometers (9 miles) over Romania.
There were no reports of Ukrainian attacks against those launch sites inside Russia. Theoretically, all were in ATACMS range.
