Warhead

The missile carries a 230kg explosive warhead that can target troop concentrations, airfields and support facilities. One variant includes cluster munitions: up to 300 bombs dropped and designed to kill troops and destroy equipment.

Savill noted that the ATACMS can be launched from the U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), of which Ukraine has several.

Range

These missiles can reach deeper into Russian territory than any other missile in the Ukrainian arsenal, but have a shorter range than cruise missiles or intercontinental ballistic missiles. Standard HIMARS missiles have a range of up to 70 km, and conventional artillery such as the howitzer has a range of about 40 km.

Military analysts say Ukraine has the ATACMS version M39A1 Block IA, which is partially controlled by the Global Positioning System (GPS) and has a range of 70 to 300 km, Reuters reported.

Ukraine is also believed to have M57 ATACMS that deliver a single 230kg high-explosive warhead at a range of 70 to 300 km. The M57 was first used in 2004 and has been used in several conflicts, including Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, according to U.S. Army documents.

Speed

ATACMS are ballistic missiles that are initially launched into the atmosphere by a rocket before falling back to the ground at incredibly high speeds to reach their intended target.

The ATACMS missile travels at a speed of Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound – 3,700 km per hour – as it rockets towards its target, making it much more difficult for Russian missile defenses to intercept than non-ballistic missiles or drones.

How does ATACMS compare to other missiles in Ukraine’s arsenal?

France and Britain have supplied SCALP and Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which are launched from aircraft and have a range of 250 km. But neither government has made clear whether they would follow the US lead and allow Ukraine to use it for longer-range cross-border attacks.

According to Davis Ellison, strategic analyst at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies, the use of drones together with ballistic or cruise missiles is “a hallmark of war.”

“In combination, they can overwhelm air defense systems to ensure the missile’s heavier payload hits the high-value target,” he said.

Objectives

In August, the Institute for the Study of War and Critical Threats – two North American think tanks that provide daily analysis of the conflict in Ukraine – created an interactive map showing “225 known military targets” that could be within range of ATACMS attacks .

“Russia has moved many high-value targets – helicopters and planes armed with glide bombs attacking Ukrainian cities – to air bases beyond the reach of ATACMS,” RUSI’s Savill said. But there are many more locations Ukraine could target, such as “military headquarters and munitions or supply locations in support of Russian and North Korean forces,” he added.

Combined with existing standard missile capabilities, ATACMS could help the Ukrainians hold the territory they occupy in Russia’s Kursk region, “in the face of Russian counterattacks and inflicting casualties on North Korean forces now operating within Russia,” it says Savill. said.

British-French possibilities

The US authorization to use ATACMS will allow Britain and France to give Ukraine permission to use similar European missiles in Russia. The Storm Shadow, known in France as SCALP, is a French-British long-range cruise missile with similar capabilities to the American ATACMS.

Because these missiles are equipped with US-made GPS targeting systems, Ukraine needs US permission to use them in Russia, said Huseyn Aliyev, senior lecturer and specialist in the Ukraine war at the University of Glasgow. The easing of restrictions on the use of ATACMS should lead to a similar easing of restrictions on the use of Storm Shadow and SCALP, Savill said.

Costs

Each ATACMS missile costs approximately $1.5 million. The comparable French-British missile, the Storm Shadow, or SCALP, costs about $1 million.

Political impact

Ukraine’s new missile capability is unlikely to have “a major impact” on convincing Donald Trump’s new administration that the country is still worth supporting, Savill said, given the many Ukrainian skeptics in the Trump camp and the short time frame until the presidential election. formal presidential inauguration on January 20.

But not everyone is convinced that Ukraine’s new missile capability is a case of too little, too late, including John E. Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center in Washington, and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006, is not convinced.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin desperately wants to take back all occupied Russian territory,” he wrote on Monday, referring to the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region. “Western weapons with longer ranges could make this significantly more difficult for Putin to achieve. That would increase Kiev’s influence on future talks.”

President Vladimir Putin responded today to Biden’s authorization of ATACMS attacks on Russian territory by formally lowering the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons. The new doctrine states that nuclear retaliation would be possible even in response to a conventional attack on Russia by any country backed by a nuclear power.

Asked Tuesday whether a Ukrainian attack with US-supplied long-range missiles could possibly trigger a nuclear response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Petrov said it was possible.