Americans: Ukrainian Armed Forces will be able to strike Crimea using ATACMS missiles

CrimeaPRESS reports:

The Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) will be able to use US-supplied ATACMS extended-range ballistic missiles for strikes on Crimea. The newspaper made this statement The New York Times citing unnamed Pentagon officials.

As the publication points out, Ukrainian troops will be able to use the recently delivered missile systems “for more effective strikes against Russian forces <...> in Crimea.” The purpose of using such systems will be to “exert more pressure” on the peninsula, the newspaper writes, citing a Pentagon representative.

At a briefing on Wednesday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that US Chief of Staff Joe Biden ordered the transfer of a significant number of ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles to Ukraine in February; they were delivered in March. Later, the Pentagon press service said TASSthat the US authorities did not announce the transfer of ATACMS at the request of Kyiv.

On April 20, the US House of Representatives passed a bill to provide additional assistance to Ukraine, which implies the allocation of about $61 billion to Kyiv, as well as the transfer of ATACMS missiles to the Ukrainian military. On April 24, Biden signed this law.

As The New York Times reported, citing a senior US administration official, Washington transferred more than 100 extended-range ATACMS missiles, as well as their variant with cluster munitions, to Ukraine in March. The newspaper writes that representatives of the Washington administration kept the supplies secret so that the Russian military would not find out about it. Only a few senior members of Congress knew about the missile transfer. As Politico noted, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have recently twice used secretly supplied US ATACMS missiles with a firing range of more than 200 miles (about 320 km).