Ukraine’s wait for permission to use US-made ATACM long-range missiles on Russian territory is finally over. President Joe Biden has greenlit Ukraine’s use of ATACMs against targets in the Kursk region, where Russian and North Korean forces are seeking to extricate their Ukrainian counterparts from ensconced positions.
Biden’s decision is a groundbreaking Ukrainian diplomatic triumph. At the September 13 Yalta European Strategy Conference, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky argued that the ATACM deliveries were pointless if they could not be used against Russian targets. Zelensky used this logic in a personal appeal to Biden at the White House later that month but left Washington empty-handed. The specter of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House and pledged cutoffs of US aid to Ukraine belatedly prodded Biden towards decisive action.
Ukraine’s use of ATACMs in Kursk will provide immediate benefits for its increasingly bleak frontline position. Russia’s deployment of 10,000 North Korean troops to Kursk Oblast is widely believed to be an asymmetric retaliation for Ukraine receiving permission to use Nato-class weaponry against Russian targets. Calling Russia’s bluff by expanding Ukraine’s use of ATACMs could deter President Vladimir Putin from recruiting additional North Korean troop contingents in 2025. It could also allow Ukraine to strike the Kursk Vostochny Airport, a military facility that reportedly houses MiG-29 jets and Pantsir S-1 air defense systems, with greater regularity.
The true significance of Biden’s decision hinges on the flexibility that the US affords to Ukrainian troops. As Ukraine has already used shorter-range HIMARS in cross-border strikes around Kharkiv, the US could approve the use of ATACMs for similar purposes. This would further complicate Russia’s efforts to achieve a military breakthrough in the Kupiansk direction.
It remains unclear whether the US will allow Ukraine to use ATACMS against Russian targets that lie further away from the frontlines. While Russia has pre-emptively moved 90 per cent of the aircraft that it uses in glide bomb strikes away from the range of ATACMs, 17 airbases and at least 250 major military objects lie within their radius.
If Biden’s decision encourages British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to loosen restrictions on Storm Shadow missile use, these facilities will become even more vulnerable. Ukraine’s alleged drone strike on a Russian factory in Izhevsk on Sunday, which is located 1,300km from its borders, has disrupted Russia’s drone and air defense production chains. Securing broader permissions for ATACM and Storm Shadow use will compound Ukraine’s indigenous technological breakthroughs.
As Trump’s inauguration nears, the US is finally making a complete rally behind the cause of Ukrainian victory. A promising pivot but one that could be too little, too late for Ukraine.