BY ELEANOR WATSON |Ukraine used U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to strike at Russian airfields Tuesday after the U.S. secretly shipped variants of the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) in recent weeks, according to U.S. officials. The Biden administration had been reluctant to send the missiles, which have a variety of ranges all the way up to 190 miles, because of the risk of escalation with Russia. The ATACMS variant Ukraine used Tuesday has a range of 100 miles and carries a cluster munition, a U.S. official said. Most notably, this was the case for Abrams tanks and training on F-16 fighter jets the U.S. has now promised Ukraine. In total, the Biden administration has provided Ukraine almost $44 billion in security assistance since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
