US officials confirm Ukraine has received ATACMS missiles for HIMARS and used them to destroy multiple helicopters at an airport in southern Ukraine (100km from the nearest frontline)

warning no drama, just combat news

Leaked by US officials

When Zelensky met with Biden he apparently promised to finally send ATACMS missiles. They denied it as a policy but the same day 3 different "anonymous sources" leaked it to NBC that they were coming.

U.S. President Joe Biden has informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Washington will provide Kyiv with ATACMS long-range missiles, NBC News reported on Friday, citing three U.S. officials and a congressional official.

another Biden W confirmed

Now less than a month later it was confirmed on CNN:

US officials indicated to CNN on Tuesday that Ukraine has already used the ATACMS, some variants of which have a maximum range of approximately 186 miles, to attack Russia's and Luhansk airfields in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military tweeted on Tuesday that the attack destroyed several Russian helicopters, an ammunition depot and an air defense launcher, but did not specify whether they used ATACMS to do it.

Airport strike

Losses = Reports are it was a mix of K-52s and MI- helicopters

/r/combatfootage gloats

Hilarious reddit jokes

War is officially over now that Ukraine has a couple long range missiles. Even though helicopters and fighter jets have been almost non-existent in this war, offensives are basically impossible now:

STUPID RUSSIANS!! why would you store multiple helicopters at an airport 100km from the frontline instead of in some field?? Bunch of fricking amateurs:

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/179xyk6/video_showing_some_of_the_aftermath_from_last

ATACMS cluster munitions

Apparently it was the cluster variant circa 1996 (instead of the single large explosion variant)

Some RU telegram posted pictures of exploded MGM-140 submunition

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1714291525981786265

From wiki:

M39A1 (ATACMS Block IA) missile with GPS-aided guidance. It carries 300 M74 Anti-personnel and Anti‑materiel (APAM) bomblets. Range: 20–300 kilometres (12–186 mi). 610 M39A1 were produced between 1997 and 2003. During Operation Iraqi Freedom 74 M39A1 were fired at Iraqi targets.

There is some skepticism but seems to be pretty much confirmed

In closing I love this Marsey, nice work @Igor_Konashenkov