I'll pull the exact quote out of the press conference you linked from Jan 4th, 2024.
"There -- there's a Newsweek story out there that says that there is ATACMS up for destruction, the expired ATACMS, U.S. ATACMS, that would be a significant expense to American taxpayers, according to one former advisor to Ukraine's commander. Is this true? Are there a bunch of ATACMS, expired ATACMS set to be destroyed? And if that is true, why would they not be going to Ukraine?"
"GEN. RYDER: Yeah, so I've seen those press reports. We looked into this and it is not true. Those reports are false."
Ryder, gave the least contextualized answer to the question possible, because USA
was clearly in the process of setting up the transfer to Ukraine and didn't want to release any information to tip Russia off. Here is the reality. The Newsweek article that sites the Ukrainian source references the "significant expense to tax payers" which the reporter parrots. I never made that claim. Furthermore, the reporter asks if the missiles are going to be destroyed.
There is a difference between destroying the missiles and removing them from active Army inventories. For example, USA
has more than 2500 Bradley IFVs in storage that it never intends to use again. They're in various states of disrepair ranging from those useful only for parts, to those that could be brought back to military service in a matter of weeks. Most of those stored Bradleys are considered obsolete, but that doesn't mean that they're useless, they simply fall below the standard of what is deemed acceptable to meet active inventory standard for the U.S. Army. The same is true of M39 ATACMS. M57E1 is their active inventory submunition variant of the ATACMS.
Ryder kept his answer as vague as possible, providing no context, due to the sensitivity around the topic.
Meanwhile, we know that Lockheed Martin delivered the first of USA's new PrSM's in late 2023, with additional batches to be delivered throughout 2024. It's painfully obvious that the reason USA changed its tune from "We don't have enough ATACMS to give" to them suddenly being supplied plentifully was for two reasons:
1. Per the CNN article linked below, the U.S. Army bolstered their order numbers of new M57 ATACMS when Lockheed Martin surged its production to 500 units per year, up from the 300'ish units per year the production line was running at. Maxing out production capability took time (more than a year) and, therefore, USA couldn't get replacement units. As soon as they became available in large quantities, their older missiles became obsolete for them and they were able to be decommissioned / placed in deep storage OR transferred to Ukraine. Ultimately, the M39 and M39A1s were transferred to Ukraine in an unknown quantity.
2. Lockheed Martin confirmed the delivery of the new PrSMs to U.S. Army inventory starting in December, 2023. Combined with the surge of M57 variant ATACMs fresh from the assembly line, this made the M39 and M39A1 variants even less relevant and an even more comfortable decision for the U.S. to transfer. The U.S. is maintaining a stockpile of M57E1 variant ATACMS that offer the submunition option, with completely upgraded components. That decision was made in 2017.
You can read whatever context you want into Ryder's vague quote, but I think that it's painfully obvious that the U.S. was simply waiting for the M57 assembly line to reach max production (an additional 200'ish units per year) and PrSM deliveries to begin (both of which happened in late 2023) to start delivering their obsolete M39 variant ATACMs to Ukraine.
DALLAS, December 11, 2023 – Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has delivered the first Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) to the U.S. Army providing long-range precision fires capability and achieving a...
news.lockheedmartin.com
and French 
ministers both noted today that the $50 billion usd loan will be released to Ukraine before the end of 2024 calendar year. How significant is this development? In 2024 Ukraine has budgeted approximately $42 Billion usd towards its own defense spending. That means they'll essentially get enough funding to double their military spending heading into 2025. Expect to see A LOT of purchases of western Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Artillery, Drones, Artillery Shells, Missiles, Ammunition, etc. $50 Billion usd (all at once) is enough money to equip a moderate sized army, virtually from scratch. 
announced that they are in the process of sending 50,000 81mm and 120mm mortar shells to Ukraine, valued at $45 million usd. 
www.nettavisen.no
announced another military aid package today, albeit, a fairly small one. It includes the following:
announced today that IFU funding is purchasing $375 million usd worth of 152mm artillery shells for Ukraine, from an undisclosed producer. Note, this is separate from the Czech 
led initiative to procure 800,000 122mm and 155mm artillery shells for Ukraine.
, The Netherlands 
, Australia 
, Denmark 
, Iceland 
, New Zealand 
, Lithuania 
, Norway 
www.google.com
www.hurriyetdailynews.com
