A handful of notable Republicans on Capitol Hill are reiterating their belief that the Biden administration should provide Ukraine with the long-range missiles they've been requesting for more than a year.
The Department of Defense provided a small number of Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine earlier this month, despite the administration's long-standing opposition to such a move due to concerns about Russian escalation. Four Republican leading national security-focused committees acknowledged their support for the administration's reversal in a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
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"Although this transfer is a positive step, the job on ATACMS is only half-done: the United States has only provided a small number of the Anti-Personnel/Anti-Materiel (APAM) variant of ATACMS and these have a shorter range. We urge you to provide the unitary warhead variant of ATACMS which has a substantially longer range than the APAMS," the lawmakers wrote in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee; and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, signed the letter.
"It is a sad reflection that Ukraine had to rely, in part, on long-range missiles provided by allies to reach these targets in the face of your administration's continued self-deterrence. Ukraine must have the ability to break Russia's logistics network for Ukraine's offensive operations to truly be successful," they added.
Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief, General Valery Zaluzhnyi, said in the Economist this week that Ukraine had struck targets in Russian-occupied Crimea with American-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time on Monday.
The lawmakers warned that failing to provide Ukraine with ATACMS "not only risks stalemate on the battlefield and the further protraction of this war, but also threatens further global instability as our adversaries conduct influence operations around the globe."
Biden has sent a supplemental funding request to Congress for more than $100 billion, roughly $60 billion of which would go to Ukraine. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified on Tuesday in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee about the significance of the request. Lawmakers on the committee generally appeared supportive of the proposal.
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House Republicans have been split on whether to continue to aid Ukraine, while Senate Republicans, collectively, appear more unified in their backing of Ukraine. Both appear to support aiding Israel in its war against Hamas, the terrorist group and de facto government of Gaza, that carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel that left roughly 1,400 people dead.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) introduced the House’s $14.3 billion Israel aid legislation on Monday, which would be paid for in full by offsets in funding for the Internal Revenue Service, but Democrats have already dismissed the proposal.