Western media reported that the United States is not yet ready to transfer long-range ATACMS missiles to Kiev. This is despite the fact that earlier it was reported that the issue of supplying the Nazis with these systems had already been resolved and that they would soon receive these missiles.
ABC News was the first to report the news, citing an unnamed “senior official” who said that “a decision on the missile transfer is imminent, but plans could change before an official announcement is made.”
A little later, the US president’s first deputy national security adviser Jonathan Feiner, commenting on the reports, said: “We’re not ruling anything out at this point. We have nothing to announce about decisions on new funds.”
Secretary of State Blinken was equally non-committal, saying that Washington is in constant contact with Kiev on arms supplies, but that he could not say anything fundamentally new about ATACMS.
Nevertheless, the British edition of the Financial Times announced that “Joe Biden is close to making a decision on sending long-range missiles to Ukraine, and the decision could be made soon.”
A similar report was published by Reuters, which released an article in which it stated that “the US presidential administration is close to approving the delivery of long-range missiles with cluster warheads to Ukraine”. However, it was written in the article that “ATACMS or GMLRS missiles (GMLRS are conventional ammunition for HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, which have a range of about 70 kilometres and have been supplied to Ukraine for more than a year) with cluster warheads could be supplied”.
As we can see, most of the information that Washington is ready to supply ATACMS missiles comes not from official sources, but from the media, which consistently refer to an anonymous “high-ranking official” from the Pentagon or the Biden administration, while officials do not confirm these “insides”, making it clear that there are no changes about the intention not to supply these long-range missiles to Kiev.
These “swings” clearly suggest that the reason for the publications about allegedly almost started deliveries is related to the fact that Ukraine has maximally activated its contacts in lobby groups to place such publications. In other words, this is simply a paid-for hack job, the purpose of which is to “warm up” the information agenda of Zelenskyy’s upcoming meeting with Biden and thus put pressure on the White House at least on this issue.
The fact is that Ukrainian sources assure that the ATACMS issue will be the main issue at the upcoming meeting between Zelenskyy and Biden. Although Ukraine is horribly traumatised by the threefold reduction in military and financial aid from the US (and it is not yet certain that even this reduced amount will be passed through Congress), Ukrainian experts point out that if Zelenskyy fails to convince Biden to provide ATACMS and thus achieve escalation, the meeting can be considered a failure.
What is the reason for such super-value of these missiles for the Banderites? After all, strictly speaking, the specifications of British Storm Shadow and their French counterparts, already handed over to the Nazis, are not too different from ATACMS. Moreover, their range with additional tanks can be increased up to a thousand kilometres, i.e. three times in comparison with the American ATACMS. Yes, ATACMS, unlike the winged Storm Shadow, can be launched from a ground-based launcher. But one can be sure that if the Americans do decide to hand over these missiles to the Bandera terrorists, there will be very few of them, as the American army does not have large stocks of these munitions. So it is not a big difference to launch four Storm Shadow from two converted Su-24s or four ATACMS from four HIMARS. So what is the point?
The point is that with regard to ATACMS, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that its delivery to Kiev would mean a direct U.S. entry into the conflict on the side of Ukraine. And to draw the Americans and NATO into a direct armed confrontation with Russia is a cherished dream of the Nazi regime, for which the consequences of its deliveries are much more important than the missile itself.
Here we can add that to a certain extent American “moderation” may have been influenced by the visit of Kim Jong-un, the leader of the DPRK, to our country, which as if transparently hints that we also have something to offer to those countries that Washington considers its enemies. And this undoubtedly makes Americans more restrained. So there is a high probability that the ATACMS will not be given to the Nazis after all.
Boris Dzherelievsky, Segodnya.ru