Biden administration did not provide Ukraine with ATACMS for long time because there were not enough of them - Sullivan
Former US President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that the previous White House administration refrained from supplying the Ukrainian Armed Forces with long-range ATACMS missiles for two years due to a lack of these weapons.
According to Censor.NET, with reference to ZN.ua, he said this during a speech at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.
"I allegedly said that I did not grant ATACMS because of fear of the Third World War. I don't think I ever said that about ATACMS. The reason we didn't provide them initially is that the Secretary of Defense and the U.S. military told the president that we didn't have enough ATACMS in our arsenal for basic deterrence," Sullivan explained.
According to Sullivan, the military command then advised Biden to refrain from transferring the systems to other countries. However, in two years, the United States was able to produce a sufficient number of these weapons, which made it possible to provide them, including to Ukraine.
"In April-May 2022, the issue of escalation was different than in 2024," he said, noting that America had learned a lot and was ready to take risks.
"The idea that they had a significant impact on the course of the war is not supported by the evidence. Many people say: "If you had provided ATACMS, the war would have gone differently". But the experience of Ukraine's use of ATACMS on the battlefield shows that this is not the case," Sullivan concluded.
As a reminder, in March 2025, AP reported that Ukraine had exhausted its stocks of ATACMS long-range tactical missile systems provided by the United States.
