Top officials were worried that Kyiv's offensive wasn't going well. So they had an idea.

Key point:

At the Aug. 30 meeting, the committee unanimously approved sending the weapons. Austin, Milley and Secretary of State Antony Blinken — who had long supported sending ATACMS — all backed the proposal.

Biden relayed the news to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Sept. 21 White House meeting: Ukraine would get a version of ATACMS, if not the long-range variant Kyiv had sought for so long.

U.S. officials secretly approved sending APAM in the package of aid announced Sept. 21, under the category of cluster munitions, the officials said.