Anonymous senior US officials suggested that the redeployment of Russian combat aircraft from Russian airfields in the ATACMS area of operation and the small number of ATACMS that the US has provided to Ukraine somehow diminishes the validity or importance of Ukraine’s request.
August 23 Politico reported that an unnamed senior national security official in the Joe Biden administration said Russian forces had moved some facilities out of the range of Western-provided Storm Shadow missiles and ATACMS.
An unnamed administration official also reported that 90 percent of Russian forces of aircraft that carry out flying bomb strikes from Russian airspace have been moved from airfields in the area of operation of Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles.
16 Russian air bases are located within the Ukrainian ATACMS operational zone in Russia, and the ISW has seen confirmation of the transfer of Russian aircraft to air bases outside the operational zone of Western-provided long-range weapons, the analytical center writes.
However, the redeployment of Russian aircraft from the 16 Russian air bases in the ATACMS area of operation does not diminish the importance of allowing Ukraine to use ATACMS against hundreds of other Russian military facilities, nor the reportedly small number of US-provided ATACMS, the ISW statement added.
US policy continues to limit Ukraine’s ability to use ATACMS to strike at least 245 known Russian military and paramilitary targets, of which only 16 (6.5 percent) are air bases (ISW previously estimated that 250 targets, including 17 air bases in the Ukrainian ATACMS area of operation based on the May 2024 site control assessment).
The maximum range of Ukraine’s HIMARS – which the US allows Ukraine to use in Russia under limited circumstances – covers 20 of these sites. At least 225 known objects are within the ATACMS range but outside the HIMARS range.
At least 209 of the 245 (more than 85 percent) known Russian military facilities in the ATACMS area of operation are not air force bases. Ukrainian forces use indigenous long-range strike systems to hit some of these targets, but they don’t appear to have many such systems – so the relatively small number of ATACMS that Ukraine has reportedly received could be significant.
The argument that the limited redeployment of Russian aircraft from 16 airfields somehow renders the debate over lifting US ATACMS restrictions irrelevant ignores the hundreds of these objects outlined in this report.
Ukrainian officials are reportedly preparing to present to senior US officials a list of targets in Russia that Ukrainian officials believe Kiev could strike if Washington lifts restrictions on US arms. ISW has not seen the Ukrainian list and does not provide any assessment of the possible overlap between the list published in this report and the list prepared by Ukrainian officials.
It is unlikely that the Russian military redistributed assets from all 245 facilities to the same extent as it did with the aircraft. ISW saw no evidence of redeployment of military assets from most of Russia’s rear areas.
A massive redeployment of assets from such facilities would pose a significant challenge to Russian logistics across the theater, and neither open sources nor US officials have indicated that Russian forces have engaged in such logistics realignments.
in 2024 In June, The Associated Press quoted a Ukrainian artillery commander as saying that Ukrainian forces could strike Russian brigade command posts on a large scale if the US approved the use of Ukrainian ATACMS to strike Russian territory, but could not currently do so because Russia has deployed such command posts. and control elements in an area 100-150 km from the front line, that is, an area outside the HIMARS area of operation but still within the ATACMS area of operation.
Any assessment that denies Ukraine permission to strike legitimate military targets in Russia based solely on the redeployment of air power is incomplete because it does not take into account the hundreds of other targets supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine, and would therefore be incorrect.
ISW does not claim that the redeployment of the Russian Air Force is the only reason why the US continues to prohibit the use of ATACMS against legitimate military targets in Russia, as ISW is not familiar with US decisions. This report from the think tank aims to respond to what appears to be an attempt to dismiss the value and importance of reconsidering these restrictions based on a partial presentation of the situation.
ISW notes that this list of 245 known sites does not include various field camps and new facilities built by the Russian military near Ukraine to support Russia’s war effort. Therefore, this list is conservative and represents only a fraction of all military facilities located in the ATACMS area of operation.
The regimental, brigade, and divisional headquarters on this list are primarily important in terms of how these facilities facilitate training and serve as storage locations, as these are typically where permanently based combat units are stationed in Ukraine.
2024-08-30 01:07:35