Biden administration did not provide Ukraine with ATACMS immediately because of their insufficient stock in US arsenal - Sullivan

Former national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the administration of former US President Joe Biden did not provide Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles at the beginning of the full-scale invasion due to the insufficient number of weapons in the country's stockpiles.

He said this during a speech at the Institute of Politics Harvard Kennedy School.

Thus, Sullivan denied the statement made in the question that he allegedly stated non providing Ukraine with ATACMS missiles because of fears of World War III.

"I don't think I've ever said that about ATACMS. The reason why we initially did not provide them is that the Secretary of Defense and the US military told the President that there were not enough ATACMS in the United States arsenal for basic deterrence for the United States," he said.

According to him, then Biden was recommended not to transfer ATACMS to other countries. But within two years, the US produced more of them, produced a sufficient amount of weapons, which allowed it to provide weapons to Ukraine.

In addition, Sullivan added, in the period April-May 2022, the issue of escalation was different than in 2024. He noted that the US had learned a lot and was already ready for things that it was not ready for at the beginning of a full-scale war in Ukraine.

Sullivan noted that Ukraine was provided with a fairly large number of ATACMS, to the point that the US is not able to provide this weapon to other countries again.

"The idea that they significantly influenced the course of the war is not supported by evidence. Many say about the decision on ATACMS: 'If you had provided ATACMS, the war would have gone very differently.' But the experience of Ukraine using ATACMS on the battlefield shows that this is not so," he concluded.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, AP previously reported that Ukraine no longer has the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which were previously transferred by the American side. The stock of these missiles was exhausted back in January.