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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 601: ATACMS? I Don’t Even Knowm Ems!

War for Ukraine Day 601: ATACMS? I Don’t Even Knowm Ems!

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Last night I included a tweet from  Special Kherson Cat with video showing that Ukraine had hit the Russian air base in Berdiansk. Now we know what munitions the Ukrainians used. The Biden administration has, apparently, very quietly sent ATACMS to Ukraine:

The Ukrainians very loudly passed them on to the Russians!

The Kyiv Independent has details:

Ukraine struck Russian forces with the U.S.-supplied long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), marking their first usage on the battlefield, unnamed U.S. officials confirmed to CNN on Oct. 17.

The missiles, previously unknown to have even been deployed in Ukraine, were reportedly used in overnight strikes against Russian military airfields in occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk that were reported on Oct. 17.

The strikes reportedly destroyed nine helicopters, an air defense system, an ammunition warehouse, and other airfield infrastructure.

Dozens of Russian soldiers were also killed and wounded in the attacks, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claimed.

Debates and premature announcements about the U.S.’ delivery of ATACMS to Ukraine have been regularly reported for months, but no official date was ever announced.

Their delivery was deliberately kept secret, the unnamed officials said, because they were concerned that Russian forces would move equipment out of the missile’s range if they knew when they would arrive.

ATACMS can hit targets deep behind the front line at a range of up to 300 kilometers and can be launched from M270 multiple rocket launchers or the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

However, photos of the missile debris shared on Russian Telegram and Twitter indicate that the missiles used likely belonged to an older class of missile, with a range of 160 kilometers.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, unnamed sources confirmed that the missiles provided have a range of about 160 kilometers.

The occupied cities of Luhansk and Berdiansk are located about 85 kilometers and 100 kilometers, respectively, from the closest front line.

As a result, the usage of ATACMS in the attacks on Luhansk and Berdiansk does not in of itself demonstrate that Ukraine now possesses the newer class of missiles that can strike up to nearly 300 kilometers.

More at the link!

Over to CNN for more details:

The US secretly provided Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles in recent days, according to multiple US officials, providing Ukraine with a significant new capability that could allow its forces to hit new Russian targets that were previously out of reach.

The confirmation came on Tuesday after images of the missiles’ submunitions inside Ukraine began circulating on social media.

US officials indicated to CNN on Tuesday that Ukraine has already used the ATACMS, some variants of which have a maximum range of approximately 186 miles, to attack Russia’s Berdyansk and Luhansk airfields in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military tweeted on Tuesday that the attack destroyed several Russian helicopters, an ammunition depot and an air defense launcher, but did not specify whether they used ATACMS to do it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the ATACMS in his daily address and expressed his gratitude for the agreements with the US being implemented.

“Today, I am especially grateful to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. They are being implemented very accurately – the ATACMS have proven themselves,” Zelensky said.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that “The United States recently provided Ukraine with a type of ATACMS capable of ranging out to 165 km as part of our ongoing support for the people of Ukraine as they defend their territory against Russia’s brutal invasion. We believe this will provide a significant boost to Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities without risking our military readiness.”

A US official said the version of the missiles the US provided to Ukraine, which carry cluster munitions instead of unitary warheads, are not in the the stockpiles the Pentagon would draw from if the US became directly involved in a war, so there were no concerns that transferring them would hinder US military readiness. National security adviser Jake Sullivan first asked the NSC in mid-July, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive appeared to be moving more slowly than anticipated, to work with the Pentagon to provide an updated memo on ATACMS options that assessed the potential impacts on US military readiness, the official said.

The official said the missiles were provided “in recent days,” and that Biden signed off on their transfer in mid-September. In a meeting with Zelensky at the White House on September 21, Biden told Zelensky about his decision to send this particular variant of the ATACMS, known as APAM or anti-personnel/anti-materiel.

The US decided to send them quietly because they wanted to take the Russians by surprise, especially after months of public back-and-forth over whether Biden would agree to send the weapons, an official said. The Russians are aware of the range of the missiles and the US was concerned they would move equipment and weapons out of reach before the missiles could be used, the official said.

More at the link!

And more on it after the jump too.

President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today is after the jump. Both the video and the English transcript.

Our task remains unchanged – this year we must be ready to open negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in the EU – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

17 October 2023 – 18:50

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

A report for this day. An eventful one.

The Staff. Key war and foreign policy issues. A meeting with the Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate. A long one. On key risks. We are addressing every risk, every threat. Our response is powerful.

Finance Minister Marchenko informed about meetings and negotiations with the heads of international financial institutions. The annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank have recently taken place. Their attention to Ukraine is important. And there is an important conclusion that many partners, different leaders and institutions have: global stability, global security, and the development of the global economy are directly linked to the fact that Russian aggression against Ukraine must end, end fairly – with the restoration of international order, with the full force of international law.

Today, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has adopted the decision necessary to start negotiations with the European Union. The law on politically exposed persons has been adopted. I am waiting to sign the text of the law. Our task remains unchanged: to be ready to open negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in the EU this year. We are doing the Ukrainian part of the job for this and we will complete it. We expect a political decision to start negotiations from the leaders of the EU countries.

I held a final meeting on the work of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Ukraine this year. This is an important and effective platform for direct communication with communities and addressing pressing issues in the regions, interaction of local authorities with all central government agencies, the government, and the Verkhovna Rada. I am grateful to everyone who is actively working within the Congress. In particular, with regard to the restoration and preparation for winter. But, of course, the work of the Congress should be expanded to cover a wider range of issues, including social issues, communications, job creation, and many, many other things that are important to people across the country.

And the front. The warriors. Our brigades. The 54th separate mechanized brigade, the 68th separate jaeger brigade, the 25th separate airborne brigade – this is the Lyman direction. And the Soledar direction: the 92nd separate assault brigade and the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar separate mechanized brigade. Thank you, warriors!

Thank you to everyone who is fighting and working for Ukraine! Thank you to everyone who is helping us! And today I am especially grateful to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. And they are being implemented very accurately – ATACMS have proven themselves.

Glory to Ukraine!

More on the ATACMS:

So, even if we now have ATACMS with the effective range of 165 kms, it’s now a major trouble to all Russian-used airfields (and not only airfields) across the entire southern Ukraine except for central and southern Crimea and mainland Russia.

Which means the impediment of Russia’s air support in the south, particularly regarding the use of Kamov Ka-52 that is a big problem to the Ukrainian offensive operation in Zaporizhia.

Avdiivka:

More on the Berdiansk and Luhansk strikes:

Russian occupied Skadovsk, Kherson Oblast:

Here’s more for you drone enthusiasts and fans of Russian military equipment going boom:

Lithuania & Germany:

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

And here’s the new episode of Patron’s cartoon from his official YouTube channel!

And a preview clip from Patron’s official TikTok:

@patron__dsns

Остання серія 1 сезону вже на моєму каналі! Лінк у шапці профілю, мерщій дивитиииись!🧡😌

♬ оригінальний звук – Patron_official

Here’s the machine translation of the caption:

The last episode of season 1 is already on my channel! The link is in my profile header, so hurry up and watch! 🧡😌

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    Mike in DC

    Great.   Now get the Germans to provide the Taurus cruise missile and watch the Kerch Bridge fall into the Sea of Azov.

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    ATACMS!!! This is me running around doing Kermit arms. I look forward to many more kabooms across the border. I hope the Ukrainians are writing some fun messages on them.

    This kitty led a soldier to its food dish where a hedgehog was chowing down. “Excuse me, I know you have a war to fight, but I need some help over here because this spiky bitch is eating my damn dinner.”

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  3. 3.

    New Deal democrat

    FWIW, via Noel Reports, Rybar is Claiming that Ukrainian forces have launched an attack southeast across the Dneiper River in the Kherson region.

      https://mstdn.social/@noelreports/111252446984612952

    I have wondered why Ukraine didn’t do that this summer, since it appears that it would circumvent almost the entire system of Russian defensive lines of mines.

    No verification obviously, but if true it would put the rest of Crimea in range of these newly supplied missiles. Maybe not a coincidence?

  6. 6.

    wjca

    The Biden administration has, apparently, very quietly sent ATACMS to Ukraine

    Sometimes, the smart tactical move is to not tell your enemy what you are doing.  Why give him time to adjust to meet the new threat?

    Just glad the Ukrainians have finally gotten them.

  8. 8.

    wjca

    @New Deal democrat: I have wondered why Ukraine didn’t do that this summer, since it appears that it would circumvent almost the entire system of Russian defensive lines of mines.

    No verification obviously, but if true it would put the rest of Crimea in range of these newly supplied missiles. Maybe not a coincidence?

    I can see some benefit to striking now, while the Russians are distracted by the scramble to redeploy assets due to ATCAMS.  Because grabbing and holding a bridgehead across the Dnipro could be huge.

  9. 9.

    cain

    It’s nice to see the UKRs going on the offensive and doing some damage to the Russian occupiers.

    Thanks for your time in putting this together!

  10. 10.

    cain

    @smith

    The right wing party in Poland was defeated in parliamentary elections, so creeping fascism has been stemmed somewhat in at least one European country.

    It’s great to see Poland defeat its right wing government – I was very concerned about it. I think this could also be fueled by Russian aggression.

    Now we just need to figure out how Hungary is going to be. That govt is also needs to have elections that kick the bums out.

    We could be well on our way on caging the Russian bear!

  11. 11.

    Bill Arnold

    @wjca:

    Sometimes, the smart tactical move is to not tell your enemy what you are doing. Why give him time to adjust to meet the new threat?

    Also, the reporting suggests that the number of supplied ATACMS was not revealed.

    Airfields are soft(er) targets for cluster munitions.

  12. 12.

    Lyrebird

    @Gin & Tonic: Hi G&T, sorry to ask you to repeat, but on your list of known to be credible Ukraine non profits, is the Back Alive pretty high up?  Tatarigami iirc endorsed it.

    BTW a thousand thanks for telling us about Chef Zhenya and his soup radicalness.

  13. 13.

    Lyrebird

    @cain: ..and also to retake the House here, right?  Praying we can take power away from some of Putin’s enablers around these parts.

     

    ETA: meant as loud agreement, not correction of any kind.

  15. 15.

    cain

    @Lyrebird: Yes indeed – but the GOP is so unpopular right now and getting more so. Plus they just show themselves as clowns.

    Whoever they get – it’s obvious that the caucus is ungovernable – and its every asshole for themselves. They’ll never agree on anything. Eventually, the moderates are going to have mutiny and mix it up with the Dems.

    My imaginative mind is already seeing a much more stupid version of a rumble like in West Side Story.

  16. 16.

    Chetan Murthy

    @cain: I’m reminded of Edward Watt’s _Mortal Republic_ about the end  of the Roman Republic.  His thesis is that the crisis was a lack of the ability for various factions to compromise: the owners of all the wealth were simply unwilling to compromise in any way, and this resulted in both governmental gridlock, and repeated civil wars, until finally someone (Caesar, then Augustus) win and became Emperor.

    That is to say, if eventually some of these “moderate” GrOPers can be convinced to caucus with Dems in exchange for compromises, it’ll be a sign that our system still works.  I’m not holding my breath.

  17. 17.

    wjca

    @cain: Now we just need to figure out how Hungary is going to be. That govt is also needs to have elections that kick the bums out.

    Unfortunately, Orbán has had years to perfect vote suppression, vote fraud, etc.  So voting him out, while possible, will be a nontrivial exercise.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Chetan Murthy: History may not repeat, but it rhymes. The parallels become clear in how the Romans, especially Rome’s elite, responded to the Spartacus revolt by turning to Crassus. This is one of the best breakdowns I’ve seen.

  20. 20.

    Lyrebird

    @Gin & Tonic: Thanks!!

    @cain: My imaginative mind is already seeing a much more stupid version of a rumble like in West Side Story.

    LOLed.  When their own colleagues admit on camera that it makes them look like idiots, you can’t be far off.  (It was a Manu Raju interview of Don Bacon iirc and another guy I don’t remember.)

    Worth repeating:

    JOHN DICKERSON: “You call some of these members ‘political terrorists.'”

    JOHN BOEHNER: “Oh, yeah, Jim Jordan especially, my colleague from Ohio. I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart – never building anything, never putting anything together.”

  24. 24.

    karen marie

    @cain:   I got both sides’d by a neighbor earlier tonight.  I kept asking him “which Republican are Dems supposed to approach to compromise with.”  He just kept shrugging and saying “both sides!”  He claims “I do my own research,” insisted Sinema was censured “by the Democrats” for “not voting with them all the time,” and when I kept saying that wasn’t true, he pulled out his phone and showed me an NRP story from back around the time of the filibuster fight that the Arizona Democratic party had censured her.  A toothless “censure” from the state party.

    Despite what the story said – that the filibuster fight was to then try to pass a voting rights bill, he kept insisting it was because Dems “were going to immediately expand the Supreme Court,” and that’s why Sinema was opposed.

    I had to spell Sinema for him six times (at least) and “censure” so he could google it and then tell me I was still wrong about the Democrats being terrible.

    He thinks it’s understandable that in the entire time she’s been a senator she’s never had a town hall or communicated with her constituents, because Democratic voters are terrible because they’re not independent like him.

    These fucking “independents” will be the death of us all.

  26. 26.

    Yutsano

    I noticed an interesting linguistic difference in the Ukrainian dog speaking about being alone. He said either “adin” or “odin” which I know is the number 1 in Russian. I just picked it up and thought it was interesting*.

    *I’m trying to write this without sounding pedantic or chauvinistic to Russian. Hopefully I did okay.

  27. 27.

    Carlo Graziani

    Interesting. I doubt that more than a dozen or so ATACMS were turned over, and they reportedly all mount cluster warheads. So the Ukrainians really have to make each one count. And they’ve decided that the highest value targets are airfields.

    The Kerch bridge is not going to be attacked with these missiles, since unitary warheads would be required to damage the supports, and deck damage from a cluster munition would be too easily repaired to be worth the expenditure. Perhaps the Dzhankoi railyard might rate a shot, especially if they should catch some supply trains there, but also to damage rail and rail repair infrastructure.

    I still think that GLSDB munitions will have more impact when they become available. But ATACMS is here now in some form. Good.

  29. 29.

    cain

    @karen marie: I wouldn’t waste my time – he’s purposely being dense and probably a bit of misogyny to go with it. If he can’t even spell Sinema or anything and then has no conclusion other than both sides.. fuck him, and the Hawaiian shirt he probably was wearing.

  30. 30.

    cain

    @smith:

    JFC – he’ll use the same tactics elsewhere.

    It should be even more imperative that they keep that son of a bitch away from 3rd from the Presidency. The man is a nuts.

  31. 31.

    cain

    @Carlo Graziani: Attacking the air fields sounds legit to me given the fact that it’s much wider area to hit without any need for position and it will take some time for anything with a wing to get in or out.

  32. 32.

    Carlo Graziani

    @cain: Oh, sure. I didn’t mean to imply that I know better about target selection than the UA. I’m just interested in what targets they do select, given that ATACMS rounds are a scarce and probably not renewable resource. It tells us something concerning their warfighting priorities. For example, it makes it clear that Russian choppers have been a pain point for the offensive.

  33. 33.

    karen marie

    @cain:  No, I don’t think he was being purposely dense, I think it just comes naturally.  I don’t think his inability to spell Sinema is misogyny either.  He just thinks he’s above it all because he’s independent, dontcha know.  He claims he doesn’t watch TV news but I know that’s not true, because I walk my dog past the apartment he shares with his wife and adult daughter and the giant TV in the living room is always on.

    He’s simply fully absorbed the lessons “our liberal media” has been teaching for decades – “both sides are at fault.”  That bandwagon has very comfortable seating, and nothing is going to get him to move.

  34. 34.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Yutsano: ​He said either “adin” or “odin” which I know is the number 1 in Russian.

    I’ve studied just enough Russian to know that an “o” in an unaccented syllable is kind of a schwa sound (ə), and since the number one in Russian (один) is accented on the second syllable, it would be pronounced “uh-din” as one might pronounce “adin.” One in Ukrainian is also один, so one wonders if it’s a similar effect.

  35. 35.

    Sebastian

    Thank you for the update, Adam.

    Congratulations to you and all us friends of Ukraine for this great day.

     

    I wanted to ask you what your professional opinion is regarding the Gaza hospital strike or if you have planned another post on that topic.

  36. 36.

    Aussie Sheila

    @karen marie:

    For ‘independents’ just substitute low information voter. In Australia they are called swing voters. We have compulsory voting here so they vote their full weight. Which is why our major centre left Party, the ALP seems timid in actual election campaigns, sometimes with bad results for policy going forward. Nevertheless, the US Dems appear to be doing politics a lot smarter lately, and the key to appearing strong is standing together, caucusing together and electing better and more partisan Democrats.

    I know Party discipline  is lax in the US due to your First Past the Post voting system, and outrageous gerrymanders, nevertheless, I prefer a system where a political Party can guarantee to potential electors that they will get what the Party actually promises.

    More partisan Dems would be an improvement. That doesn’t mean more idiotically ideological.I can deal with political disagreements. I can’t deal with people who prevaricate at the first hurdle of being in actual government. I love it that in the ALP if you canvas for or support a candidate opposed to the endorsed ALP candidate you are expelled. That is honest and right and proper politics imo.

    Go Biden/Harris.

    Go a better organised and fiercer Democratic Party.

    Oh, and eff Starmer and Lammy and their appalling prevaricating on  what is permitted by Israel in this appalling and terrible situation in Gaza. I am sick to death of Labour politicians being asked to condemn to Hamas before their opinions are even considered.

    I detest proxy militias like Hamas and their ilk. They are are the scourge of humanity. Just ask the Ukrainians and any country subject to their brutality. But the US has supported many such organisations in the past. I have a long and unforgiving political memory.

    The hope for a more just and democratic world lies in every decent polity picking up their particular burden, and carrying it. And that applies to Australia, particularly after the unforgivable loss of the Voice referendum last Saturday.

  37. 37.

    Anonymous At Work

    Coming in late but who should do the extended dance club remix of It’s Always HIMARS O’Clock for even the older models ATACMS?  I’m old, and favor Tiesto, for a somber long listen.

  38. 38.

    YY_Sima Qian

    The Russian heliport at Berdyanl has been a prime target for cluster munitions armed ATACMS since we saw the satellite images back in Jun.

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