Military Expert: Ukrainian Forces Will Drive Russian Aviation To Distant Borders

• 25.09.2023, 15:07

This requires special weapons.

It is beneficial for Ukrainian defenders to receive long-range ATACMS missiles from the United States with cluster warheads, says military expert Oleh Katkov.

“We are interested in getting not just ATACMS but with cluster warheads,” he said.

According to him, ATACMS missiles with cluster warheads and a 300km range will allow the Armed Forces of Ukraine to drive Russian aviation to long ranges, writes UNIAN.

“If their air bases are under attack, the Russians will be forced to withdraw their aircraft to distant positions. This will lead to the fact that the number of sorties will be reduced and aviation will lose its effectiveness... This is a huge strategic process that can be implemented precisely thanks to cluster ATACMS. This is a rather large-scale task... Therefore, we are talking about the need for hundreds of such missiles,” Katkov said.

He added that, according to declassified Pentagon data for 2007, the United States had a bit less than 500 such missiles. These missiles have not been produced since 2003.

“This is quite a significant amount, especially since the United States abandoned the ATACMS cluster missiles and started to replace them,” the expert said.

He believes that taking all this into account, the specified number of these missiles can be considered as a potential supply resource for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.