Blinken carries USA's permission for Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will give Ukraine permission to strike Russia with American long-range ATACMS missiles, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives Michael McCaul said in an interview with Axios journalist Juliegrace Brufke.

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"I talked to Blinken two days ago, and he is traveling with his counterpart from the UK to Kyiv to basically tell them that they will allow them [to hit Russia with ATACMS]," the congressman said in a conversation with Brufke.

Earlier, Blinken said that US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer would discuss permission for Ukraine to launch long-range missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Russian State Duma deputy Dmitry Novikov earlier suggested that Kyiv could receive the permission in the foreseeable future.

"The talking about strikes deep into Russia has become more frequent because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's sponsors feel that within the framework of the previous concept of certain rules, Ukraine is unable to win the confrontation. The West can not afford to lose, they can not give Zelensky an opportunity to lose," Novikov told lenta.ru news website.

Details

The MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System is a supersonic tactical ballistic missile designed and manufactured by the US defense company Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV), and later Lockheed Martin through acquisitions. It uses solid propellant and is 13 feet (4.0 m) long and 24 inches (610 mm) in diameter, and the longest-range variants can fly up to 190 miles (300 km). The missiles can be fired from the tracked M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and the wheeled M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). An ATACMS launch container (pod) has one rocket but a lid patterned with six circles like a standard MLRS rocket lid to prevent an enemy from discerning what type of missile is loaded.