U.S. Military Lists Advanced Weapons Systems That Could Aid Ukraine

In early September, the top American military commander in Europe submitted a classified report to Congress that included something the Biden administration had not yet acted on: a detailed list of weapons systems the United States possesses that could meaningfully strengthen Ukraine's hand against Russian forces. General Chris Cavoli's inventory named two categories of hardware that stood out—air-to-surface cruise missiles that could be launched from fighter jets, and Link 16, a secure communications network that NATO and the U.S. military use to coordinate air defense and missile operations across multiple platforms. Ukraine had asked for both systems repeatedly. Neither had been provided.

The reasons for the withholding were not spelled out in Cavoli's list, but American officials had offered explanations before. Sensitive American technology falling into Russian hands remained a concern, particularly with the communications system. The cruise missiles presented a different problem: they would only be useful to Ukrainian pilots if Ukraine first achieved a meaningful degree of air superiority—something it did not yet have. The calculus was straightforward, if frustrating to Kyiv. The weapons existed. The assessment was that they could help. But the risks and preconditions outweighed the benefits, at least in the judgment of officials in Washington.

This tension played out most visibly around a different weapon system entirely: the ATACMS, a long-range missile that the United States had already provided to Ukraine but with strict limitations. When President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House in late September to meet with President Joe Biden, he arrived with a list—not of weapons he wanted, but of targets inside Russia he wanted permission to strike with those ATACMS missiles. The list was central to what Zelensky called his "victory plan." Biden, who had maintained a firm prohibition on deep strikes into Russian territory, did not close the door entirely. But he did not commit either. The two leaders agreed to keep talking. Then Biden canceled a planned trip to Germany for a NATO defense meeting, and officials told reporters that a policy shift on long-range missiles remained unlikely.

The American position rested on several arguments. Officials said they were already providing Ukraine with everything the U.S. military assessed Kyiv needed for its current fight. The limited supply of ATACMS in the American arsenal was better used against targets in Crimea, they said. And Ukraine was already conducting successful strikes deep inside Russia using its own long-range drones, which actually had greater range than the ATACMS anyway. Russian forces, meanwhile, had moved many of their most valuable targets beyond the 290-kilometer reach of the American missiles. The Ukrainians countered that plenty of strategic assets remained within range—military bases, production facilities, logistics hubs—and that denying them the ability to strike those targets was a self-imposed constraint that benefited Moscow.

Underlying these disagreements was a larger anxiety. The American presidential election was weeks away. If Donald Trump won in November, the future of U.S. support for Ukraine became uncertain. To hedge against that possibility, the United States and its allies were working to ensure Ukraine had what it needed through the end of 2025. NATO had established its own mechanism for military aid and training, launched in July. The Pentagon was moving toward contracts with private American companies to send personnel to Ukraine for equipment maintenance and logistics—a crucial step to prevent weapons and systems from breaking down at critical moments. The hope, expressed by American officials, was that 2025 would mark a turning point in Russia's ability to sustain its war effort. Russia had lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers in nearly three years of fighting. To achieve major battlefield gains, Putin would likely need to order another mobilization—a politically risky move. And while the Kremlin had so far shielded its economy from the worst of Western sanctions, some signs suggested economic stress might emerge by late 2025.

But the strategy itself remained vague. The classified report delivered to Congress defined victory only in loose terms: Ukrainian sovereignty and self-determination. A separate classified annex suggested categories for measuring success—territory recovered, for instance—but offered no benchmarks. Critics said the administration's plan for Ukrainian victory was still unclear. Meanwhile, on the ground, the war continued its grinding momentum. Russia had made slow advances in the east, where Putin's focus lay. Ukraine, earlier in the year, had seized a significant stretch of Russian territory that it continued to hold, a move some officials believed was stretching Kyiv dangerously thin along the eastern front. The situation remained fluid, the outcome uncertain, and the weapons that might shift the balance remained locked away in American warehouses.