U.S. will send Ukraine longer-range weapons under aid bill. Why it matters

The bill requires the U.S. send long-range ATACMS, once considered off the table by the Biden administration, as Ukraine gets more bold at striking targets within Russia.

Ukraine is expected to soon get its hands on the most powerful long-range weapon systems delivered by the U.S. during the war with Russia to date, thanks to a requirement in the massive national security aid package signed into law Wednesday.

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to approve the package passed by the House of Representatives last weekend that includes US$61 billion for Ukraine, finally unlocking a new round of military aid after months of delay.

The Ukraine aid bill includes a requirement for President Joe Biden to approve the transfer of long-range army tactical missile systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine “as soon as is practicable” after signing the aid into law.

The weapons, long sought by both Ukraine and Republican defence hawks, will further allow the Ukrainians to strike Russian targets — a tactic once seen as unnecessarily escalatory but that has become more common in recent months.

“What you have seen over the last two years is … there’s been a kind of slow acceptance of, are we backing Ukraine simply to survive, or are we backing Ukraine to win?” said Colin Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a former Canadian diplomat to the U.S.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday said Biden assured him in a phone call that day that the U.S. aid will include long-range and artillery capabilities. He later posted on social media that “everything has been decided in the ATACMS negotiations for Ukraine.”

The White House and the Pentagon have so far declined to say if it will send the long-range weapons once the aid bill is signed. But officials have said they are committed to getting Ukraine what it needs as quickly as possible to push back an encroaching Russia, which is currently outmanning and outfiring the Ukrainians.

“They’re under the gun right now, literally and figuratively,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.