The US Army is ready to send long-range ATACMS missiles equipped with cluster munitions to Ukraine as soon as President Joe Biden approves the transfer.
Source: Bloomberg
Details: Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Doug Bush said this in an interview.
According to him, “the US Army has long been ready for such a development of events.”
He noted that the United States is ready to “act quickly.”
There are several versions of the missiles, including those with cluster warheads or conventional warheads. Cassette ATGMs have a range of 25 to 300 kilometers. They carry between 300 and 950 cluster munitions, according to the service’s official weapons manual.
Bush said the missiles the US will send have already been identified.
ATACMS missiles could be launched from the same launchers that Ukraine already uses to launch GPS-guided missiles in batches of six at a time.
The difference is that only one ATACMS missile is fired in a salvo from one launcher.
The modifications required to convert the launcher, according to Bush, “are not that significant, some cables, some software – it’s not very big.”
Direct speech: “We are ready when and if the president (Biden – ed.) decides to do this.”
Last month, Bush told reporters that the US Army was preparing for the first delivery of the first version of the replacement, the ATACMS, called the Precision Strike Missile. Both missiles are manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp.
US lawmakers have been urging Biden to send ATACMS to Ukraine for months and people familiar with the matter said last month that the US president had finally relented, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his visit to Washington last month that he was willing to do so.
Let us remind you:
According to NBC News, Biden told Zelensky at a meeting at the White House that Washington will transfer a small number of ATACMS missiles to help in the war with Russia. Washington previously explained the refusal to transfer long-range missiles by saying that the United States does not have sufficient reserves of these weapons. Another reason, which was not publicly voiced by American officials, is fears of escalation from Russia.
2023-10-03 11:17:00
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