Kiev, Ukraine – Washington’s decision to let Kiev use high-precision Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMSs) to attack targets in Russia came ‘too late,’ says Vitaly, a wounded Ukrainian soldier who needs crutches to get around central Kiev .

He believes that outgoing US President Joe Biden “should have allowed us to use it indefinitely two years ago”.

“We were driving the Russians out of (the eastern region of) Kharkov and could have brought the war to them, to their territory,” the blond 29-year-old told Al Jazeera, withholding his surname in line with war regulations.

Since then, Moscow has mobilized hundreds of thousands of men, ramped up weapons production, secured the supply of weapons from Iran and North Korea and circumvented Western sanctions to import dual-purpose goods such as chips used in drones.

“It’s too late, because now the Russians are emboldened. Their economy works for the war, their people are zombified that they enlist and get a lot of money for it, and we lose a little every day,” Vitaly said.

Washington delivered the first ATACMS long-range missiles to Ukraine last year, but did not let Kiev use them for attacks deep into Russia.

Biden’s decision was reported by several Western media on Sunday. The White House and Pentagon have declined to confirm this.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address that “strikes are not done with words.”

“Such things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves,” he said.

The Kremlin has predictably lashed out at Washington and Kiev.

President Vladimir Putin signed a revised nuclear doctrine on Tuesday, which Russian officials have previously said is a measure “related to the escalation of our Western adversaries.”

Although the review was in the works, the timing of Putin’s signing is seen as a warning after the US allowed the Ukrainian attacks.

The doctrine states that attacks on Russia by countries supported by a nuclear force should be seen as a joint attack on it.

The White House decision on the missile strikes “is a qualitatively new circle of tension and a qualitatively new situation from the point of view” of US involvement in this conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

Hungary and Slovakia, whose governments are leaning toward the Kremlin, also denounced the move.

‘ATACMS cannot in principle change anything’

Some Ukrainian analysts say Biden’s decision may have followed his preoccupation with his political legacy.

“This is a final memoir entry and an attempt to say ‘I did everything I could’ before I left,” Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch told Al Jazeera.

“In addition, there is a factor of strategic uncertainty for Russia, but it will no longer work,” he said.

Biden accelerated the delivery of US military aid before leaving office in January, while newly elected President Donald Trump and his young team are largely skeptical about further aid to Ukraine.

They are calling for a quick peace deal with Moscow, which would entail the loss of occupied Ukrainian territories in the east and south, and possibly their recognition as part of Russia.

ATACMSs are surface-to-surface ballistic missiles with a range of 300 km (186 mi). They fly high into the atmosphere to gain speed before hitting their targets and are therefore difficult to intercept by air defense systems.

They can carry cluster warheads consisting of hundreds of small bombs that detonate over a wide area, or a single warhead that can destroy large, fortified structures.

But they are far from a game-changing ‘miracle weapon’, analysts warn.

“ATACMS, like any other type of missiles, cannot change anything in principle, and the damage they cause is always limited, especially if there are too few of them,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at Germany’s University of Bremen, told Al Jazeera .

Russia has long anticipated Washington’s approval and has already removed large groups of military personnel, weapons depots and heavy bombers from areas that could be affected by ATACMS, he said.

However, the missiles could hit bridges, fuel depots or airstrips in western Russia, creating a “beautiful picture” for Western television viewers, Mitrokhin said.

Kiev’s biggest problem, however, is not the missiles or the arrival of some 12,000 North Korean soldiers in the western Russian region of Kursk, where they are helping Moscow drive out Ukrainian forces, he said.

The problem is that the configuration of the front lines is getting longer, while the number of Ukrainian soldiers defending them is decreasing dramatically, he said.

“That is why Russia wins first of all on the most important index: the number of soldiers on the battlefield,” Mitrokhin said.

Ukraine also has a “strange” organization of defense lines and faces “huge” problems in decision-making amid conflict between top officials, frontline officers and soldiers in the trenches, he said.

Kiev focused its defense lines on the cities and industrial towns in the rust belt region of the Donbas, while Russian forces use this “tactical failure to simply walk across the fields around them,” Mitrokhin said.

But Ukraine can use all the weapons it can get.

“The situation on the front lines is difficult, but we must follow the ‘better-late-than-never’ rule” when it comes to ATACMS, said Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of the Ukrainian General Staff of the Armed Forces . .

Russian weapons have already “surpassed” those of Ukraine, he said.

For example, it equipped sliding heavy bombs with engines and propellers.

Bombers drop them far from the front lines and the range of Ukrainian air defense systems, allowing them to fly more than 100 km (62 miles).

“We need at least equality,” Romanenko told Al Jazeera.

Ukraine’s military problems

Meanwhile, Ukraine has still not succeeded in producing basic weapons and ammunition, such as powder and artillery shells.

The shortage or absence of Ukrainian-made weapons is exacerbated by the decline in weapons production in the West after the Cold War.

While the West promised to deliver one million grenades to Kiev within two years, Russian military factories are producing them non-stop and North Korea supplied five million Soviet-era grenades, Romanenko said.

However, volunteer groups that have mushroomed across Ukraine are compensating for the lack of conventional weapons by producing hundreds of thousands of drones and other devices.

But Ukraine’s biggest problem is a lack of well-trained soldiers to replace the exhausted and despondent veterans.

Kiev is facing a dire military shortage despite a brutal and deeply unpopular mobilization campaign.

It must urgently boost the mobilization and training of soldiers, Romanenko said.

“Otherwise the situation will deteriorate considerably,” he concluded.