WASHINGTON-
Ukraine has for the first time begun using long-range ballistic missiles secretly provided by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
The new missiles, long sought by Ukrainian leaders, give Ukraine almost double the strike range – up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) – that it had with the medium-range version of the weapon it received from the United States last October. . One of the officials said the United States is providing more of these missiles in a new military aid package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
Biden approved the delivery of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in February, and then in March the United States included a “significant” number of them in an announced $300 million aid package, said an official.
The two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delivery before it was made public, did not provide the exact number of missiles delivered last month or in the latest aid package, which amounts to about $1 billion. .
Ukraine has been forced to ration its weapons and faces increasing Russian attacks. Ukraine had been begging for the long-range system because the missiles provide a critical capability to strike Russian targets that are further away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range.
Information about the delivery has remained so quiet that in recent days lawmakers and others have demanded that the United States send the weapons, unaware that they were already in Ukraine.
For months, the United States resisted sending long-range missiles to Ukraine out of fear that kyiv could use them to penetrate deep into Russian territory, angering Moscow and escalating the conflict. That was a key reason why the administration shipped the mid-range version, with a range of about 160 kilometers (about 100 miles), in October.
Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the White House and military planners carefully examined the risks of providing long-range fires to Ukraine and determined the time was right to do so now.
He told The Associated Press in an interview that long-range weapons will help Ukraine eliminate Russian logistics nodes and non-frontline troop concentrations. Grady declined to identify what specific weapons were being provided, but said they will be “very disruptive if used correctly, and I’m sure they will be.”
Like many of the other sophisticated weapons systems provided to Ukraine, the administration weighed whether their use would risk further escalating the conflict. The administration continues to make clear that the weapons cannot be used to attack targets inside Russia. At the State Department, spokesman Vedant Patel said Wednesday that Biden directed his national security team to send the ATACMS specifying that they would be used within the sovereign territory of Ukraine.
“I think the time is right, and the chief (Biden) made the decision that it is the right time to provide them based on where the fight is right now,” Grady said Wednesday. “I think it was a very well-considered decision, and we really pulled it off, but again, any time you introduce a new system, any change, to a battlefield, you have to think about its escalating nature.”
Ukrainian officials have not publicly acknowledged receipt or use of long-range ATACMS. But in thanking Congress for passing the new aid bill on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted on social platform rapid reestablishment of a just peace.”
One of the U.S. officials said the Biden administration warned Russia last year that if Moscow acquired and used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to kyiv.
Russia obtained some of those weapons from North Korea and has used them on the Ukrainian battlefield, the official said, prompting the Biden administration to greenlight the new long-range missiles.
The United States had refused to confirm that the long-range missiles were delivered to Ukraine until they were actually used on the battlefield and leaders in kyiv approved the public disclosure. An official said the weapons were used early last week to attack the airfield in Dzhankoi, a town in Crimea, a peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. They were used again overnight east of the occupied city of Berdyansk. .
Videos on social media from last week showed the explosions at the military airfield, but officials at the time did not confirm that it was ATACMS.
Ukraine’s first use of the weapon came as political gridlock in Congress had delayed approval for months of a $95 billion foreign aid package, including funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. Facing a severe shortage of artillery and air defense systems, Ukraine has been rationing its ammunition as U.S. funding was delayed.
With the war now in its third year, Russia took advantage of the delay in American weapons deliveries and its own advantage in firepower and personnel to intensify attacks across eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs (launched from planes from a safe distance) to hit Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.
The medium-range missiles provided last year, and some of the long-range ones sent more recently, carry cluster munitions that open in mid-air when fired, releasing hundreds of mini-bombs instead of a single warhead. Others recently sent have a single warhead.
A critical factor in the March decision to ship the weapons was the U.S. military’s ability to begin replacing older ATACMS. The Army is now purchasing the precision strike missile, so it is more comfortable taking ATACMS off the shelves to provide it to Ukraine, the official said.
Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.