The Atacms Missile
High on the Ukrainian list that has now been sent to US parliamentarians, is a 4-meter-long missile worth almost $1 million each that is heading at more than 3,000 kilometers per hour at its target: the Atacms. This US missile, which made its debut in Iraq, should be the big… game changer become of war. With its range of 300 kilometers, the Atacms (Army Tactical Missile System) can burn down any Russian target with great precision: headquarters, airfields and storage depots. Also, one rocket can fire three hundred smaller bombs at soldiers, tanks and armored cars.
The Ukrainian military is already using a similar missile, which is fired with the US Himars system. However, this high-tech missile, which has caused a turning point in the war in recent months, does not reach further than 70 kilometers. With the Atacms, the Ukrainian army can strike even deeper into Russian occupied territory, even in Crimea.
Problem: The US has so far refused to send the missiles to the battlefield, so as not to offend the Russians. “We are not going to give Ukraine a missile with which to attack Russia,” said President Joe Biden. Ukrainian promises that the Atacms will not be used against military bases in Russia, the White House dismisses. But pressure from Congress and former generals to deliver the missiles is mounting. With the current Himars missiles, more than four hundred Russian targets could already be destroyed, with the Atacms the effect will be much greater.
Former NATO commander Philip Breedlove and some 20 other security experts see the Atacms as crucial to defeating the Russians. They called on Biden last month to quickly send the missile and more Himars batteries to Ukraine. “Now the time has come to pull out all the stops and give Ukraine all the resources it needs to win,” said Breedlove and his colleagues.
The Leopard Tank
Modern tanks have also been on Kyiv’s wish list since the beginning of the war to counterbalance the vast superiority of the Russian armored infantry on the ground. A handful of Eastern European countries, including Poland, promised the Ukrainians more than two hundred tanks of Russian origin a few months after the start of the war, but modern Western tanks, which attacked the Russian T-72 from a distance of 2.5 kilometres. They couldn’t shoot tanks to shreds.
Because the West did not want to supply offensive weapons, Kyiv had to make do with anti-tank weapons such as the Javelin. They proved to be of great use. But as the war with the Ukrainian offensives near Kharkiv and Kherson enters a new phase, Ukraine urgently needs heavy military equipment. Only with the coordinated attacks of tanks and armored cars, supported by the artillery, the Ukrainians could overrun the Russians, as the offensive at Kharkiv proved.
If it is up to Ukraine, German Leopard tanks will appear on the battlefield as soon as possible to defeat Russia. Kyiv has been asking Berlin for the heavily armored and technologically advanced Leopard-2 for some time now, which is no match for the highly vulnerable Russian tanks. With the American M1-Abrams, the Leopard-2 is counted among the world’s best battle tanks. But Germany is not interested in delivery.
The Leopards are desperately needed for the defense of the country, according to Berlin. Nor do the Germans want to act on their own. “No country has supplied Western tanks,” said German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht. However, Ukraine suspects Berlin of being afraid of the Kremlin. “Disappointing signals now that Ukraine needs Leopards to liberate and save the population from genocide,” Lambrecht’s Ukrainian colleague Oleksi Reznikov tweeted.
Also in the US there are calls to quickly reinforce Ukrainian tank units with American Abrams tanks to defeat Russia. “It is better than most Russian tanks and available in large numbers,” he said Atlantic Council organization that advocated swiftly sending 240 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
The MiG-29 Fighter Fighter
The Ukrainian fighter pilots prefer modern western aircraft, such as the F-16 and the European Eurofighter, to fight the Russians. Equipped with high-tech missiles. But the US thought the reinforcement of the Ukrainian air force was a step too far, so that it has not succeeded in almost seven months of war.
Nevertheless, Kyiv managed to prevent the Russian air force from operating freely in Ukrainian airspace. Because the Ukrainians still have a small number of combat aircraft and the S-300 air defense system, the Russian pilots have to constantly fear that they could be shot from the sky.
But the Ukrainian units at Kharkov and Kherson now have no air support. In order not to lose their aircraft, the Ukrainian Air Force only carries out ten to twenty flights a day. With additional MiG-29s, supplied by Eastern European countries, the ground operations can be more supported.
The MiG-29, which once belonged to the most modern Russian combat aircraft, now also plays an important role on the Ukrainian side as the carrier of the Harm missiles that the US has supplied to Kyiv. This allows the Ukrainian Air Force to disable the Russian radar systems so that the MiGs can operate freely without fearing the Russian anti-aircraft missiles. The first pictures have already surfaced of MiG-29s, armed with the Harm missile, hunting for the Russian radar systems.