The US secretly provided Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles, according to two US officials. The confirmation came on Tuesday after images of the missiles' submunitions inside Ukraine began circulating on social media.
It is not clear when the US missiles were provided. But the US decided in recent weeks to send them quietly because they wanted to take the Russians by surprise, especially after months of public back-and-forth over whether President Joe 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.
US officials indicated to CNN on Tuesday that Ukraine 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 this week. The Ukrainian military tweeted 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.
The US has sent some weapons secretly in the past. In August 2022, the Pentagon acknowledged that it had sent HARM anti-radiation missiles to Ukraine unannounced.
But the US typically announces significant weapons packages to Ukraine, including when it sent Patriot air defense systems last year and cluster munitions this year. Asked repeatedly over the last several weeks about the status of the systems, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US has "nothing to announce." That was a deliberate choice of words, officials said.
The Pentagon said it was referring all questions about the ATACMS to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Discussions about sending the systems picked up substantially last month, CNN previously reported. US officials had previously been reluctant to send the long-range surface-to-surface guided missiles amid fears about escalating the conflict as they could potentially be fired into Russia itself. That concern largely waned over the last several months, however, since Ukraine demonstrated that it was not using other US-provided weapons to attack territory inside Russia, officials said.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
