(NewsWorthy.news) – The White House plans to send several additional Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine. A new $300 million package of military aid will include the Anti-Personnel/Anti-Materiel missiles according to two U.S. officials.
The APAM missiles are an older version of long-range ATACMS. The aid package will include artillery rounds and additional rounds for the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System and the 155mm howitzers. The APAM missiles, whose warheads house hundreds of cluster bomblets, travel 100 miles.
The news comes as Congress stalls Biden’s request for more funding to support the armed forces of Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The two officials were given anonymity to discuss the plan.
Biden chose to secretly send long-range missiles to Ukraine in 2023 as concern mounted over Ukraine’s struggling offensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with Western powers for aid as the country ran out of ammunition. Russian ammunition supplies are also reportedly dwindling due to the conflict.
The fact that donations sent to Ukraine came from existing stockpiles raised security concerns for donor nations as Ukraine’s forces struggled to make significant advances in 2023. With supplies coming from North Korea and Iran, Russia appears to be replenishing its arsenal more rapidly than Ukraine due to Western allies becoming increasingly hesitant to send more aid to the country. In July 2023 the United Kingdom’s then-Defense Secretary Ben Wallace suggested that Ukraine should show more gratitude if it wanted more weapons. Wallace commented that Ukraine’s global allies were “not Amazon”. In February 2024 French President Emmanuel Macron faced criticism from both EU and NATO partners for suggesting sending ground troops into Ukraine.
The U.S. approved the transfer of a short-range version of the missiles in October after Ukraine promised that it would not use them to strike inside Russia. Zelenskyy later said that the weapons had “proven themselves”. Zelenskyy has warned that Russia is taking advantage of Ukraine’s struggle to replenish its arsenal, calling the situation on the frontline a sensitive matter and stressing the country’s need for longer-range weapons and frontline air defense.
The latest package is only temporary as Pentagon officials stress that they still need the full supplemental to replenish more than $10 billion worth of weapons sent to Ukraine from the U.S. military’s stocks.
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