Ukraine Wants Long-Range Weapons. Here’s a Look at What They Are.

Much of the public discourse about arming Ukraine has revolved around whether the United States will send “long range” weapons. But that can mean different things.

There are roughly 500 miles between Kyiv and Moscow.

The United States has weapons that can fly much farther than that, but it is unlikely to supply them to Ukraine for fear that an attack on the Russian capital with American weapons might spark a third world war.

So within that 500-mile range the Biden administration has been pushed repeatedly to give Kyiv weapons that can hit targets as far away as possible. Discussion among Ukraine’s supporters often centers on calls for “long range” weapons — a term with no real military definition, but that has an emotional pull Ukrainian leaders have used to pressure the White House for ever more capable munitions.

Over two and half years of war, “long range” has evolved in the public forum to describe a host of increasingly advanced U.S. weapons. The trend began soon after Russia’s 2022 invasion, when U.S. government officials first used the term to apply to …

Artillery

The United States has sent Ukraine the longest-range artillery pieces in its arsenal: 155-millimeter howitzers, which can fire 100-pound shells at targets about 20 miles away. Each shell contains about 24 pounds of explosives.

Since the beginning of the war, the United States has shipped three million M795 artillery shells to Ukraine for the weapon to fire. That model can be fitted with a guidance kit that steers the projectile to its target, though there is no evidence to suggest the Pentagon has sent those devices to Kyiv.

Ukrainian soldiers tend to fire far more shells than U.S. troops do, wearing out the barrels of the weapons comparatively quickly. Replacing them requires specialized equipment and cannot easily be done in the field by the soldiers who use them.

Within months, the discussion about what to give Ukraine moved to the next longer-range, ground-based weapons, which are …

Artillery Rockets

These weapons fly more than twice as far as the shells fired by 155-millimeter howitzers. The American High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, is a five-ton truck that typically carries six rockets on its back called GMLRS, for Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, that can launch a 200-pound explosive warhead about 52 miles.

On June 1, 2022, the Pentagon announced that it was sending four HIMARS trucks to Ukraine. Weeks later, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III referred to them as part of Ukraine’s “long-range fires.”

Since then, the U.S. military has sent more than 40 such trucks, and thousands of GMLRS (pronounced “Gimmlers”) to Ukraine. (The United States has also given the country money to buy even more of those rockets directly from the manufacturer.)

The HIMARS can also fire another type of munition.

That brings us to the world of …

Short-Range Ballistic Missiles

Since early in the war, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has pleaded for weapons that can hit even deeper into Russian-held territory, and eventually into Russia itself.

One American example of this kind is the ATACMS, pronounced “attack ’ems,” for Army Tactical Missile System. The State Department described them as “long range” when it announced in April that the missiles had been shipped to Ukraine.

They can hit targets roughly 190 miles away and contain about 375 pounds of explosives.

Ballistic missiles fly much higher into the atmosphere than artillery rockets and many times farther, coming back to the ground at incredibly high speed because of gravity’s pull.

Generally, this class of ballistic missiles can fly to targets 43 to 620 miles away.

The United States does not currently field any weapons in the next two categories, which are …

Medium- and Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles

The United States developed medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during the Cold War, but it largely got rid of them decades ago.

That was partly because of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or I.N.F., that the United States and the Soviet Union signed in 1987. The treaty banned land-based ballistic missiles with ranges of about 310 to 3,400 miles.

But the treaty died in 2019 after the White House accused Russia of fielding weapons that violated its terms.

The I.N.F. tried to ban particularly worrisome and potentially nuclear-armed weapons that could threaten Moscow from NATO territory and were hard for the Soviets to shoot down.

Aside from medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, that included land-based weapons called …

Cruise Missiles

The best-known example is the Tomahawk, developed in the 1970s for the U.S. Navy. The Air Force adopted an air-launched version, and the Army had a ground-launched version until it was made illegal under the I.N.F. Treaty.

While there are different versions of the Tomahawk, they can generally reach targets about 1,000 miles away while carrying a conventional warhead with the explosive power of about 400 pounds of TNT, or a small thermonuclear device tens of thousands of times more powerful.

Unlike high-flying ballistic missiles, cruise missiles like the Tomahawk have small wings that allow them to fly horizontally low to the ground and use small jet engines to reach distances more than five times farther than ATACMS.

As of yet, there has been no public discussion of providing Tomahawks to Ukraine, but the Pentagon has a smaller and more stealthy air-launched cruise missile under consideration.

It is called JASSM, pronounced “jazz ’em,” for Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile. The most basic version carries the equivalent of 240 pounds of TNT to a range of about 230 miles. More advanced versions can fly more than 1,000 miles.

The only things that fly farther are …

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

ICBMs carry nuclear warheads and can be launched from underground silos or from submarines underwater. They can fly about 8,000 miles to hit targets on the other side of the planet.

Their explosive power can be measured in the hundreds of thousands of tons of TNT.

They are not in the cards for Ukraine, since their use against Russia would almost certainly provoke a global nuclear war.

Hypersonic Weapons

Currently in development by the United States, Russia and China, these are weapons that fly faster than five times the speed of sound and can maneuver sharply to evade an enemy’s defenses.

Some short-range ballistic missiles might meet that definition in the final portion of their flight, but the current buzz over hypersonics is related to a new generation of weapons that quickly achieve those speeds and hold them while flying on the edge of space to cross oceans or continents.

The Pentagon is pursuing two types of hypersonic weapons meant to fly several hundred to a couple of thousand miles.

Unlike most other missiles that carry explosives, their warhead is a solid piece of tungsten — a metal roughly 70 percent denser than lead — that destroys its target through kinetic energy released as it slams into the target at more than 3,000 feet per second.

But the United States has none to give to Ukraine. Even after spending billions on their development, the Pentagon has yet to field a working prototype.

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

• Ukrainian-Russian Couples: Relationships between Ukrainians and Russians have long been common. Russia’s invasion has brought stigma, separation, legal troubles and a reconsideration of identity.
• Life in Kharkiv Endures: In the war-ravaged city of Kharkiv, an unlikely sound filled a dimly lit underground garage on a recent morning: the soaring voices of soprano and baritone singers.
• Biden Poised to Approve New Tactics: President Biden appears on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to launch long-range Western weapons deep inside Russian territory, as long as it doesn’t use arms provided by the United States, European officials say.

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