US could send long-range missiles to Ukraine if funding passes – report

Joe Biden’s White House is prepared to send long-range tactical missiles to Ukraine if Congress approves a new funding package, according to a US media report on Monday.

Citing two unnamed officials, NBC News said that the administration was willing to send a variant of the missiles – known as Atacms (army tactical missile systems) – if a new $60bn aid package approved by the Senate, but held up for now by congressional Republicans, becomes law.

The US approved the transfer of a short-range variant of the missiles in October after Kyiv offered assurances that they would not be used to strike inside Russian-held territory. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, later said that the weapons had “proven themselves”.

Newer variations of Atacms that the Biden administration wants to send to Ukraine have a maximum range of nearly 200 miles (300km), typically carrying cluster bomblets, allowing Ukrainian forces to strike the Crimean Peninsula.

According to officials who spoke with NBC anonymously, it was possible that the US would request that Nato allies provide the missiles to Ukraine against the expectation that the American government would refill depleted stockpiles.

Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov, said in recent days that the fall of Avdiivka to Russian forces had shown that supplies of “long-range weapons are needed to destroy enemy formations”.

A US state department readout ahead of a meeting between the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, in Munich said it anticipated the diplomats would discuss “pressing” issues related to “ammunition, air defense, [and] long-range capabilities”.

Kuleba later said he had discussed the supply of long-range Atacms with his US