Long-range missiles won’t be included in forthcoming aid package
Mike Brest
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The Biden administration is expected to announce another massive military aid package to Ukraine in the coming days, but long-range missiles will not be included.
While Ukraine has asked for the ATACMs, surface-to-surface long-range missile systems, for months, Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the Pentagon’s judgment “to date has been that the juice isn’t really worth the squeeze.”
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Kahl just returned from a trip to Ukraine along with Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer where they met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among other top officials. Kahl said it’s their belief that, “The Ukrainians can change the dynamic on the battlefield and achieve the type of effects they want to push the Russians back without ATACMs.”
He did leave open the possibility that the U.S. stance on ATACMs could change over time.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is in Germany. He is set to meet with incoming German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Thursday, who assumed the position after his predecessor, Christine Lambrecht, announced her resignation earlier this week. He and Joint Chief Chairman Mark Milley are also there for the eighth meeting of the Defense Contact Group. The group consists of defense leaders from roughly 50 countries, and they meet monthly to assess the situation in Ukraine and how they can best assist Kyiv.
This time around, there will be a significant focus on tanks and armored vehicles as experts expect a renewed Russian offensive in the coming months. All eyes are on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Pistorius as well.
Berlin has refused to transfer the German-made Leopard tanks throughout the war and have blocked other countries with them from doing the same. Scholz told American lawmakers on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Wednesday that they wouldn’t unless the U.S. provided tanks to Ukraine themselves, namely their main tank, the M1 Abrams.
But the U.S. hasn’t sent Abrams tanks so far in the war and the significant level of maintenance required is a factor.
“”I just don’t think we’re there yet,” said Kahl. “Abrams tanks [are] very complicated, expensive, it’s hard to train. It has a jet engine. I think it’s about three gallons to the mile jet fuel. It is not the easiest system to maintain.”
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The Biden administration’s most recent military aid package, worth nearly $4 billion and announced earlier this month, included 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
“Mobilization of the world must outpace the next military mobilization of our joint enemy,” Zelensky said in a video address to the World Economic Forum at Davos on Wednesday. “The supplying of Ukraine with air defense systems must outpace Russia’s next missile attacks. The supplies of Western tanks must outpace another invasion of Russian tanks.”