The Biden administration is nearing an announcement that it will provide Ukraine with a version of ATACMS long-range missiles armed with cluster bomblets rather than a single warhead, according to several people familiar with the ongoing deliberations.

The cluster-armed ATACMS, with a range of up to 190 miles, depending on the version chosen, could allow Ukraine to strike command posts, ammunition stores and logistics routes far behind Russian front lines and dug-in defenses. Ukraine, with backing from a number of U.S. lawmakers, has been asking since last year for ATACMS, which stands for Army Tactical Missile System.

Biden moved during the summer from a firm and long-standing “no” to saying the issue was “still in play.” Although the administration backed away from initial concerns that Kyiv would use the long-range weapons to strike inside Russian territory, the Pentagon still worried that drawing down enough ATACMS from relatively small military stockpiles to make a difference on the Ukraine battlefield would undercut the readiness of U.S. forces for other possible conflicts.

Ukraine has requested hundreds of the missiles.

But the cluster-armed version of ATACMS are more plentiful than those topped with a single — or “unitary” — warhead and are no longer considered a front-line U.S. weapon. From an estimated original production of 2,500, some from the early 1990s, an unknown number were later refitted with unitary warheads, according to a fiscal year 2018 Defense Department publication. But many of the cluster variant remain in stockpiles. Consideration of the cluster warhead ATACMS was first reported by Reuters.