Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory on Tuesday, taking advantage of newly granted permission from the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden on the war’s 1,000th day, Reuters reported.
Russia said its forces shot down five out of six missiles, which were fired at a military facility in the Bryansk region. Debris of one hit the facility, starting a fire swiftly put out and caused no casualties or damage, it said.
Ukraine said it struck a Russian arms depot about 110 km (70 miles) inside Russia in an attack that caused secondary explosions. Ukraine’s military did not publicly specify what weapons it had used, but a Ukrainian government source and a US official confirmed it had used ATACMS.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia was able to intercept two out of eight missiles fired by Ukraine and that the strike was at an ammunition supply point.
Biden approved this week for Ukraine to use ATACMS, the longest-range missiles Washington has supplied, for such attacks inside Russia. Moscow has described their potential use as an escalation that would make Washington a direct combatant in the war and prompt Russian retaliation.
The attack took place as Ukraine marked 1,000 days of war, with a fifth of Ukrainian territory in Moscow’s hands and doubts about the future of Western support as Donald Trump heads back to the White House.
The permission to use ATACMS gives Ukraine a new US ballistic missile capability inside Russia. However, its range of up to 300 km is much shorter than that of some missiles Moscow has used to strike Ukraine, including its hypersonic Kinzhal weapon with a reported range of up to 2,000 km.
Military experts say using the US missiles to attack positions so deep in Russia can help Ukraine defend a pocket of Russian territory it captured as a bargaining chip but is not likely to have a decisive impact on the course of the 33-month-old war, in part because the move came far too late.
Moscow has said such weapons cannot be used without direct operational support from the United States, and therefore their use would make Washington a direct participant in the war.
On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin signed a new nuclear doctrine that appeared intended as a warning to Washington. It lowers the threshold under which Russia might use atomic weapons including responding to attacks that threaten its territorial integrity.