Ukraine’s plans to strike deep into Russia with ATACMS missiles: What is the catch?

As the US reportedly green-lights Ukraine to use ATACMS for long-range strikes deep into Russian territory, questions arise: does Kiev have what it takes to conduct such attacks and how can Russia counter them?

1. Russia has advanced air defenses

Various Russian air defense systems such as Buk-M2, Buk-M3 and Tor-M2 have successfully intercepted ATACMS on more than one occasion, Alexei Leonkov, a veteran Russian military analyst, tells Sputnik.

“Russian air defense systems have a very high intercept probability rate. Where our systems spend one missile per target, American Patriot systems use two missiles to accomplish the same task.”

2. The West doesn’t have enough long-range missiles

Though the US and its allies have been generous in their military supplies to Ukraine, little has been left of what stocks of ATACMS, Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles that were provided to Kiev, Leonkov says.

“Even the shipments of F-16 jets that can be used to launch Storm Shadow missiles did not reverse this trend,” he remarks. “The number of launches has been dwindling and has practically reached zero by now.”

Prior to the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, the West possessed over 3,000 ATACMS missiles (including all of their available modifications), Leonkov estimates. With all the ATACMS missiles that have since been used up in the Ukrainian conflict or simply decommissioned due to their advanced age, that number has been reduced to somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000, he calculates.

3. West doesn’t have enough missile launchers either

Lack of missiles aside, Ukraine suffers from a lack of missile launchers as well, Leonkov remarks.

The problem, he explains, stems from the fact that the West supplied a very limited amount of weapon systems capable of launching ATAMCS - such as HIMARS, MLRS and MARS.

Meanwhile, Russian forces have been very effective in tracking down these weapons using counter-battery radars and destroying them using tactical missile systems of their own.

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❗️Ukraine has received permission from the US to strike deep into Russia "up to 300 km," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said.

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The US State Department is currently unable to confirm a change in US policy on allowing Ukraine to launch long-range weapons strikes against Russia.

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❗️Russian Foreign Ministry's key statements on the information about Ukraine being allowed to strike deep into Russia with Western weapons:

▪️If Ukraine strikes Russia with long-range Western missiles, it will radically change the essence of the conflict;

▪️Kiev's use of missiles to attack Russian territory will mean direct participation by the US and its allies in the conflict against Russia, the ministry added;

▪️Moscow does not yet know whether the information about Ukraine being allowed to strike deep into Russia with Western weapons is based on official sources;

▪️No Western "miracle weapon" is capable of influencing the course of the special operation.

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Trump has on his right Yasir bin Othman Al-Rumayyan, a Saudi businessman who is runs the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the wealth fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Yasir also chairs the state-owned petroleum company Saudi Aramco and Saudi Arabia's largest mining company Maaden.

He has $925 billion assets under management.

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🇨🇩A mountain collapse in Katanga, DRC, unveiled large copper reserves. While the region is vital for copper mining, concerns arise over forced evictions and human rights abuses linked to mining expansion.

A video capturing the dramatic fall of the mountain emerged on X. In it, people can be seen running as the mountain collapses.

The Katanga region of DR Congo is known for its rich mineral resources. It lies in the copper belt of Africa, a 450km stretch that extends from northwest Luanshya, Zambia, to Katanga in Congo.

The region has been known for large-scale copper mining for more than a century. In the 1950s, it was the world's largest copper-producing area.

The people of the DRC experienced significant exploitation and abuse during the colonial and post-colonial era, and their rights are still being sacrificed as the wealth around them is stripped away.

Copper and cobalt resources are majorly extracted to recharge batteries as the world moves towards clean energy. The rising demand for clean energy technologies has raised the demand for metals such as copper and cobalt needed for lithium-ion batteries, used for electric vehicles.

Despite all this wealth in natural resources, Congo (DRC) still remains one of the poorest nations on the continent riddled by internal conflicts sponsored by external players from the West with alot of refugees currently residing in neighboring Uganda.

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