Ukraine wants to use Western long-range weapons against Russia. But the gain on the battlefield is not obvious

CNN
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Next week, an already very public debate over whether Ukraine should be allowed to use Western-supplied long-range missiles on Russian soil will come into even sharper international focus.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to meet not only with US President Joe Biden, who has expressed openness to discussing the issue, but probably also with both US presidential candidates on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The meetings come as experts say public wrangling over the issue has raised the stakes of the decision and potentially changed the role the missiles – the Franco-British Storm Shadow/Scalps and the U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) – could play in the expanding war.

Almost exactly a year ago, also during a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky in the United States, Biden made the decision to provide ATACMS to Ukraine.

The information did indeed leak, but official confirmation did not come until a month later, with Zelensky burying it at the end of a late-night speech on October 18. “Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented,” he said. “And they are being implemented very precisely – the ATACMS have proven themselves.” By that point, the missiles had already been used, according to US officials, in several strikes against Russian-occupied Luhansk and the southern coastal city of Berdyansk.

A few months earlier, a similar story had occurred with the British Storm Shadows, when the then Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace confirmed their delivery only after they were already in service. In both cases, Ukraine promised not to use them on Russian territory.

In September, Zelensky adopted a strategy of more open defiance of his allies, which, combined with open threats from Russia that any lifting of restrictions on their use would mean war with NATO, made the issue of firing these missiles at Russia a political touchstone, an ultimate determinant of the extent of Western support.

Zelensky has refused to let the issue fade from the headlines – publicly criticizing his allies' hesitation after a Russian strike on a military educational institution in Poltava killed more than 50 people earlier this month.

“Every day of delay, unfortunately, means death for people,” he said.

Last weekend, after a Russian bomb attack on a Kharkiv apartment building, he even made veiled accusations of cowardice, saying: “This terrorism can be stopped. But to stop it, we must overcome the fear of having to make strong and objectively necessary decisions.”

“Zelensky has taken a certain risk,” said Matthew Savill, director of military science at the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank. “He’s almost playing a political game. He’s daring people to support him.” If that happens, however, the political dividend would be significant, Savill said, because it would tone down Russian rhetoric and “demonstrate strong international support” for Ukraine.

As for battlefield dividends, experts say it's less clear.

Opinions are divided on the extent to which the public debate over the missile authorizations has dimmed their potential usefulness — particularly when it comes to targeting Russian fighter jets and missiles before they can be used against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. U.S. intelligence estimates that 90 percent of the Russian aircraft that drop deadly glide bombs (at least 100 a day, according to Zelensky) are more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, out of range of ATACMS. And that number could rise. Russia recently moved aircraft from two bases near the border further east, according to a U.S. official.

Savill admits that “many of the juiciest targets” have probably been moved deeper into Russian territory, meaning the impact on the war could be “limited.” But that doesn’t mean the missiles have no use. The Storm Shadows, designed to penetrate deep into concrete, could be effective against military headquarters or munitions depots, many of which are still within range. The ATACMS, some of which are equipped with nuclear warheads, could be used to cause significant damage to airfields. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington DC think tank, has calculated that 15 Russian airfields are within range of the ATACMS (although it’s unclear how many aircraft are still stationed there).

George Barros, the author of the ISW study, admits that a less public debate might have been preferable, but if the very prospect of granting these permits has forced Russia to move its planes farther from the border, that is a good thing. It could reduce the number of bombing missions that Russian planes can fly (known in the military as the “sortie rate”) and give Ukraine valuable time to detect and react to imminent attacks.

More importantly, he believes that if Ukraine could strike Russian troops, weapons and logistics within 300 kilometers of the high-end ATACMS, it would force Russia for the first time to calculate the risks associated with moving large quantities of troops and equipment into Ukraine.

“You just started talking about a potential risk to the Russian rear area and depriving it of this insane luxury that the Russian command has provided itself with. To really bring in equipment in mass, to get a 10-to-1 artillery ratio on Ukraine on the front lines,” he told CNN.

Barros' research has identified at least 200 potential targets that would be within range of ATACMs, ranging from military regiments to fuel depots, weapons storage depots and even the headquarters of Russia's Southern Military District in Rostov (all of which would be much more difficult to move than aircraft).

The list is also conservative, Barros acknowledges, and did not take into account new targets installed after the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. And some of the newer targets could, Savill said, include Iran's FATH-360 ballistic missiles, which the US says have already been supplied and have a range of just 75 kilometers (47 miles), far less than Western missiles.

Experts also agree that the missiles could provide valuable support to Ukrainian ground operations and drones. Savill believes that ATACMS could cause serious damage to Russian radars and air defense systems, adding that “if you blow a hole through it, long-range Ukrainian drones actually have better options to penetrate deeper into Russia.” Attacking Russian air defense systems in border areas could also improve Ukraine’s chances of retaking its own territory, Barros said.

“You are actually opening up interesting areas where parts of occupied Ukraine are no longer under the umbrella of Russian air defense,” he said.

There is also the theoretical possibility, Savill said, of extending the missiles' range by launching them from Ukrainian positions inside Kursk, although that could put Ukrainian bombers and missile launchers in the crosshairs of Russian air defenses.

Ultimately, Ukraine continues to argue that the ability to use Western-supplied long-range missiles inside Russia is part of the complex puzzle of ending this war on kyiv's terms – and a way to show Russia that it cannot survive Ukraine's allies.

Zelensky is traveling to the United States on the one hand encouraged by the Kursk offensive, which provides further proof of Ukrainian ingenuity and, in his view, of the fragility of Russian “red lines,” but on the other hand motivated by the prospect of a third winter with critical electricity shortages and still insufficient supplies of equipment and manpower.

“We need to have this long-range capability not only on occupied Ukrainian territory, but also on Russian territory,” he told a large gathering of Ukraine’s allies at the U.S. air base at Ramstein in Germany earlier this month, “so that Russia will be motivated to seek peace.”