ATACMS: US' precision-guided missiles designed to strike deep behind enemy lines

Ukrainian forces look set to receive from the United States the long-range MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to help their ongoing counter-offensive against Russia.

The ATACMS, which has been seen combat use with the US Army since 1991, is a surface-to-surface artillery piece can hit targets way beyond the range of other existing missiles and rocket systems.

Used in combat during Operation Desert Storm and later in the Iraq War, the ATACMS can strike targets up to 300km away.

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Unlike the UK's Storm Shadow and its French equivalent the SCALP, which the Ukrainians are launching from Su-24 bombers, ATACMS can be fired from High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) missile launchers, both of which Ukraine already operates.

Ukraine does not have a large surplus of Storm Shadows, so has been using them sparingly.

But the US has thousands of ATACMS dating back to the mid-1980s. 

Ukraine had reportedly been asking the US for the ATACMS to primarily support hitting Russian supply lines, airbases and rail networks deep behind their front lines in occupied regions of Ukraine.

According to US media outlets NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, which both quoted unnamed US officials, President Joe Biden had informed his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that Kyiv would receive a "small number" of ATACMS missiles.