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US has small stockpile of long-range missiles to hand them over to Ukraine — Pentagon

There's a policy decision to date not to, so far, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley
© AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib

WASHINGTON, April 1. /TASS/. The United States has an small stockpile of long-range missiles, which limits the possibility of handing them over to Ukraine, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said in an online interview with the Defense One media outlet.

Asked whether Washington was planning to supply Ukraine with ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles with a strike range of up to 300 kilometers, Milley replied "Well, there's a policy decision to date not to, so far. And I would never predict anything on the table, off the table, for the future."

"But from a military standpoint, we have relatively few ATACMS, we do have to make sure that we maintain our own munitions inventories, as well," he continued. "And the range of the weapon - I think there's a little bit of overstating of what an ATACMS can do and can't do."

"You're looking at a single shot, so think of a musket versus a repeating rifle. Whereas the GMLRS fires six shots, and ATACMs fires one. Now the range of the ATACMS is longer, but there's other systems they can get you that range," the high-ranking military official said.

"There’s UAVs, for example, that could do it, and the Brits have a couple of systems. So, those are some things that we're looking at to give them a little bit more legs. But right now, we're not providing the ATACMS," Milley added.

Ukraine repeatedly asked the United States to provide it with ATACMS missiles, but was refused.