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Let’s Say It Together: ATACMS
These U.S.-supplied missiles will be game-changers — and that could mean either for the good or the bad. Only time will tell
The MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System is a tactical ballistic missile manufactured by the US defense company Lockheed Martin. It uses solid propellant, is 13 feet high and 24 inches in diameter, and the longest-range variants can fly up to 190 miles (Wikipedia).
Over the last month, the United States secretly delivered to Ukraine the ATACMS missiles. The only information about their delivery became public knowledge when Ukraine launched them against a Russian airfield in the occupied territories of Eastern Ukraine. Vladimir Putin was in China playing down the significance of the missile delivery. Still, Russian military bloggers on Telegram called the assault on the airfield one of the worst, if not the worst, against Russia since the world began.
Russian milblogger Fighterbomber said on Tuesday that the strike was “one of the most serious blows . . . if not the most serious” of Russia’s Special Military Operation, which is what Russia calls the invasion.
“There are losses in both people and technology,” the milblogger said, according to the Financial Times’ translation (Russian Milblogger Admits).
