US cluster ATACMS could be on Ukraine battlefields "next week": Ex-adviser

Ukraine this week will get the green light to receive long-range U.S.-produced cluster munition rockets, according to an American campaigner central to Kyiv's missile push who has framed the weapons as a game changer for the Ukrainian war effort.

Dan Rice, a former U.S. Army officer and West Point graduate, previously served as a special adviser to Ukrainian commander-in-chief General Valery Zaluzhnyi, advising on the American weapons that could help turn the tide against Russia's full-scale invasion, which began February 24, 2022, Newsweek reports.

Instrumental in the White House decision to send 155mm, tube-fired dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) to Ukraine earlier this year, Rice has since been pushing for the supply of longer-range cluster munition rockets to be fired by Ukraine's U.S.-made M142 High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and other platforms.

Long-awaited approval for DPICM rockets with ranges to just over 100 miles, Rice told Newsweek on Monday, appears imminent, as the White House edges closer to finally lifting its block on supplying the long-range MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System—known as the ATACMS—to Kyiv.

"Approval is likely this week on HIMARS cluster rockets," Rice—who is now the president of the American University Kyiv—said, citing conversations with "the American decision makers and the Americans who have to implement getting them to Ukraine" as the basis for his prediction. "I'm telling the Ukrainians.

"Getting approval this week for HIMARS DPICM will be a game changer," Rice said. "And with no training and change needed, it will likely be on the battlefield next week, making a huge difference. When those rockets launch, they break the sound barrier. To me, that's the sound of freedom."

Newsweek has reached out to the White House, Pentagon and the Ukrainian Defence Ministry by email to request comment.

Rice has been working with U.S. lawmakers and Pentagon officials for several months, pushing for the munitions upgrades he previously told Newsweek could "win the war" for Kyiv, by enabling Ukrainian forces to devastate Russian command posts, logistics hubs and supply routes in the occupied "land corridor" of southern Ukraine.

Kyiv has long been pushing for ATACMS rockets, versions of which can deliver a solid high-explosive warhead out to 190 miles. The cluster munition versions of the rockets have shorter ranges and scatter hundreds of bomblets over a target area.

The White House has consistently refused to supply any version of the ATACMS because of concerns about domestic stocks and fears that its use by Ukraine might prompt escalatory retaliation from Moscow.

President Joe Biden appears poised to green light ATACMS transfers following his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at last week's United Nations General Assembly in New York. What version of the weapon and how many rockets will be provided remains unclear, as does the timeline for delivery.

Rice believes the ATACMS M39 rocket with a range of just over 100 miles, plus shorter-range M26 and M26A1 rockets—all armed with cluster munitions—could serve as potent weapons for the Ukrainian military and steppingstones to the longest-range rocket with the unitary explosive warhead.

Briefings with senior lawmakers "helped the House and Senate foreign relations and armed services committees better understand what the family of cluster munitions for howitzers and HIMARS was all about," Rice said.

"I was told by a ranking member that it allowed a compromise. Previously they were under the belief the choice was binary—either all in with 190-mile ATACMS with unitary warhead, or nothing."

The M26 and M26A1 rockets are fired from the HIMARS and other Western-supplied multiple launch rocket systems from six-rocket pods. The larger ATACMS M39 is fired as a single rocket using a different pod mounted on the same vehicles.

"Giving them the 20-, 28-, and 100-mile range cluster options made a perfect compromise," Rice added. "The three M26, M26A1 and M39 are all 'need to have'" weapons for the Ukrainians, he said. "I believe they will choose M26, M26A1 and M39 as a compromise for the 190-mile ATACMS."

Rice said that American cluster munition rockets slated for disposal but not yet destroyed can be quickly put into Ukrainian use.

"They are scheduled to be destroyed, so they have a book value of $0," he said. "Actually, the value is negative since the cost of destroying is significant versus shipping to Ukraine. So, the Republicans who don't want to spend on Ukraine can't really argue. It's lethal and it's free."