Ukrainian Armed Forces Officer Explains How USA & Ukraine Outwitted Russia Regarding ATACMS Supplies

The next batch of missiles is just around the corner.

The United States confirmed the transfer of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. Apparently, the attack on the airfield in Berdyansk was carried out by these missiles. What features can be noted in the wake of the first use of an American missile?

The Charter97.org website spoke about this with a military expert, reserve major of the National Guard of Ukraine, veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war Oleksiy Hetman:

— Firstly, ATACMS is a ballistic missile. It has a different flight path than the cruise missiles we have used previously: Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG, our own Neptune missiles, as well as the Harpoon, used in anti-ship warfare against the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

ATACMS has a speed of 1 km/s — this is the so-called “three waves”. There are several modifications of these missiles with a range from 165 to 300 km: MGM-140A, MGM-140B, MGM-164A and so on. They differ not only in range, but also in their warhead.

The warhead can contain high-explosive fragmentation; in other words, it’s like the explosion of a large grenade. There may also be cluster charges. Ukraine was given missiles with cluster charges.

The M39 cluster warhead can carry up to 950 M74 submunitions. They cover an area of about 1 square kilometer.

They are detonated when cluster charges are at a certain height so that the warheads inside the rocket can fly further apart. Then they also explode, damaging manpower, equipment, and starting fires.

I’d like to stress that we do not use these missiles (like other cluster munitions) where civilians could be harmed. We promised this to our American partners.

The airfield near Berdyansk was most likely hit by ATACMS with a range of 165 km, since, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, this is a test batch received as a result of an agreement between him and US President Joe Biden.

As a result, helicopters, an air defense launcher, significant manpower, and equipment were destroyed. A few hours after the impact, two warehouses detonated.

Let me emphasize that it is very good that the missiles were transferred to us secretly. We understand that they did not arrive in Ukraine yesterday. They had to be brought in, put into service, prepared, a combat order written, and a specific time and place set, a target selected, and a launch made.

We managed to do all these actions completely secretly. Russian intelligence was unable to intervene, which means our counterintelligence, the Security Service, worked well.

We showed how much we need ATACMS missiles and how positively they influence the entire situation on the front line. Therefore, I think that the next delivery is just around the corner. We have shown our allies that we are respectable partners and fulfill our agreements and responsibilities to the fullest.

We are not using these missiles on Russian territory, as we were asked to do (even though I completely disagree with this). Let me emphasize that we do not use ATACMS in areas where civilians could be harmed.

All these will be arguments for us to continue to provide more ATACMS. We need at least 100 of these missiles.

— Can ATACMS missiles change the course of the war in Ukraine?

— A missile, a tank or an airplane cannot change the course of a war. The course of the war is changed by soldiers on the battlefield. In other words, infantry.

Even the most modern weapons only help infantry to beat the enemy, but do not do it for them. This needs to be differentiated.

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