With the war between Ukraine and Russia continuing, there has been a new and important event on the Crimean front. In an attempt to strengthen Ukrainian defenses, the United States has dispatched Kyiv long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which have already become apparent to Russian forces deployed in Crimea. This advancement, indicative of a change in battlefield dynamics, is made amid Ukraine’s ongoing increase of shelling of Russian forces on the peninsula a peninsula Moscow has held since 2014 and which Kyiv has promised to retake.
The ATACMS is interoperable with the M142 HIMARS rocket artillery launchers and the older M270 MLRS launchers, which Ukraine already owns. News statements show recent attacks have been very costly in terms of Russian war assets, such as vital assets like the S-400 anti-air defense systems and MiG-31 fighter jets destroyed. Perhaps one of the most dramatic incidents was from May 14th to May 15th, when massive bombing by Ukrainian forces on the Russian airbase Belbek created huge fires captured by NASA satellite imagery. The effect of such deep attacks has been so severe that Russia has been forced to pull airplanes from airstrips close to the front lines and move them into safer locations beyond reach of Ukraine’s precision-guided rockets.
Belbek airbase, situated close to the city of Sevastopol, is a strategic airbase that housed a vast cohort of Russian fighter planes. Notwithstanding Russia’s Defense Ministry assertion of the interception of 10 U.S.-supplied ATACMS ballistic missiles by their Tor-M2 air defense systems, satellite images and independent witnesses report otherwise. Believed to have hit the airbase as much as 16 ATACMS missiles, the airbase is reported to have been badly devastated.
The deployment of the ATACMS in Ukrainian operations has transformed the war. There was reluctance by the Biden administration to deploy these missiles as they were afraid that doing so would cause further movement deeper into Russian territory and potentially cross a ‘red line’ established by Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the delivery of Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG cruise missiles, supplied by France and the UK, with an even greater range than the ATACMS, served to dissipate such issues. The donation of US mid-range ATACMS, with a 165-kilometer range, followed by donations of ATACMs of extended range to attack up to 300 kilometers, is the escalation of global assistance to Ukraine.
As a demonstration of their capacity to annihilate, the advanced weapons have played a pivotal role in battering over 100 military installations on the Crimean Peninsula. Recent victory has pushed the Russian army to relocate its troops as seen by the relocation of some warplanes from frontline airfields. Their capacity to target critical infrastructure, including the Crimean Bridge a central connection of the peninsula and mainland Russia holds the strategic benefit that Ukrainian forces gain through the use of ATACMS.
To respond to these trends, the Russian authorities have come to see the threat posed by ATACMS, with Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea Georgy Muradov worried about the risk of the Crimean cities being targeted and the vital Crimean Bridge. Defying claims about the abilities of their air defense system, recognition of a “new threat” reflects the mounting pressure on the Russian military in Crimea.
