Russian forces have captured an intact guidance system from a long-range U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) missile and are studying the American military technology, Russia’s RIA state news agency said. Video footage released by RIA showed an unidentified weapons expert, with his face concealed by a balaclava, examining what he said was a guidance system from an ATACMS weapon apparently shot down by Russian forces.
The expert is seen showing labels on the back of the missile’s GPS guidance system, which indicate it originated in a U.S. army store in Alabama. He explains that the captured hardware allows Russia to study how the missiles are controlled during flight. Viktor Litovkin, a retired Russian colonel, told the online Lenta.ru news portal that Moscow would try to identify any weak spots and use the information it gleaned to improve its ability to shoot down ATACMS missiles.
“We can reconfigure our surface-to-air missile systems that are supposed to shoot it (the missile) down and we can reconfigure and fine-tune our electronic warfare systems against this missile,” Litovkin was quoted as saying. Washington began supplying Ukraine with the long-range ATACMS several months ago, after two years of having rebuffed requests from Kyiv for weapons with such a range. The missiles can strike up to 300 km away, around double the range of the (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) HIMARS systems that the United States began supplying Ukraine in 2022. Moscow has condemned Washington for supplying the weapons, which it says is an escalatory move. Russia says the United States assists Ukraine in firing them, which Washington denies.
The Biden administration has made it clear that long-range weapons provided by it to Ukraine are not to be used against targets in Russia. A U.S. statement making it clear that it neither encourages nor enables such attack. The remark comes a day after a Ukrainian ATACMS strike on a Russian Air Force Base in Belbek in Crimea, purported satellite images released after the attack show that two MiG-31s and a Sukhoi-27 were destroyed in the Ukrainian attack. There are also claims that a Russian S-300 or S-400 air defence missile system was destroyed in the attack.
The Biden administration was initially hesitant to provide such a potent long-range weapon to Ukraine, as they suspected that such weapons may be used to hit targets deep inside Russia provoking a much harsher retaliation from Putin and thereby escalating the war. Ukraine was initially provided with a 165 km ranged version of the weapon and it was only in April that the Americans provided a 300 km ranged version to the Ukrainians. The ATACMS can be fired from either the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (M270 MLRS) both provided to Ukraine by the West.
(With inputs from Reuters)
