Ukraine will receive coveted long-range missiles from the U.S. after the House of Representatives gave Kyiv more than $60 billion in aid.
"Today we have a result: everything has been decided in the ATACMS negotiations for Ukraine," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.
A U.S. defense official said it was "premature to discuss the potential size and contents of any package at this time" ahead of Congress giving its approval to the fresh aid.
On Saturday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the potentially game-changing $60 billion assistance for Kyiv after it languished in Congress for months, mired in political infighting.
The White House said on Monday that President Joe Biden had spoken with Zelensky, assuring him that the Biden administration "will quickly provide significant new security assistance packages" for Kyiv's urgent air defense and battlefield needs, once the aid passed through the Senate for presidential sign-off.
"We are poised to respond very quickly if directed to deliver much-needed weapons and ammunition to Ukraine," the defense official told Newsweek in a statement.
ATACMS, or Army Tactical Missile Systems, are surface-to-surface artillery weapon systems able to fire missiles striking targets up to around 186 miles away. Ukraine debuted its ATACMS in October 2023, using a cluster variant of the missiles to strike two Russian bases in Moscow-controlled Ukraine and damage a slew of helicopters.
Kyiv has used ATACMS missiles with a range of around 100 miles, able to fire on Russian targets using the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) it also received from the U.S.
It is not clear exactly when the new military aid will make its way to the frontlines, but Senate Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA), told CBS on Sunday that parts of the aid package "will be in transit by the end of the week."
The Biden administration has been preparing to provide ATACMS to Ukraine over the last few months, he added. It was reported in mid-February that the U.S. favored sending longer-range ATACMS to Ukraine to enable strikes on the Russian-held Crimean peninsula.
Long-range strike capabilities have long been a priority for Kyiv, along with the ammunition to keep Ukraine's artillery systems running, and air defense systems to shield Ukraine's population centers and critical infrastructure.
Zelensky said earlier this month that Russia was able to fire ten times the number of shells than Ukrainian troops, meaning Moscow will "be pushing us back every day."
He told PBS that air defense systems had not been able to intercept all the Russian missiles fired at the Trypilska power plant in mid-April because Ukraine "had zero missiles."
Russian attacks destroyed the Trypilska facility earlier this month. It was one of Ukraine's largest power plants, and had supplied energy to several regions, including Kyiv.
Update 4/23/2024 at 10:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a comment from a U.S. defense official.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
