As the Russia-Ukraine war entered its 1,000th day on Tuesday, Moscow said that Kyiv fired US-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles into its Bryansk region.
The attack comes just two days after the Biden administration reportedly allowed Ukraine to use American weapons to fire deep into Russia.
Kyiv wasted little to no time in using its newly acquired powers, marking the first time it hit targets deep inside Russia using long-range American missiles.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that at 3:25 am local time on Tuesday, Ukraine fired as many as six ballistic missiles at a facility in Bryansk, adding that US-made ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles had been used in the attack, CNN reported.
In this attack, the Russian air defences shot down five of the six missiles and another was damaged, they said. Fragments of the damaged missile fell on a military facility’s territory, sparking a fire that has since been put off. No casualty or damage was reported.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden on Sunday reportedly authorized the use of US-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine to strike even deep inside Russia, aiming to help Kyiv defend itself while also trying to prevent further escalation of the conflict.
The decision also comes against the backdrop of thousands of North Korean troops being deployed to Russia’s Kursk region along Ukraine’s northern border to help Moscow regain its grounds.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a press briefing on Monday that the involvement of North Korean troops in the Ukraine war “was a major escalation by Russia, bringing in an Asian military to a conflict inside Europe”, the CNN report said.
Washington’s decision to ease the limitations on weapons usage for Ukraine has been in the pipeline for a long time. Notably, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been constantly pressing Biden to allow Kyiv to use American missiles to target deeper Russian targets.
Soon after reports of the missile attack on Bryansk surfaced, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the revisions in Moscow’s nuclear doctrine. By doing so, he sent a clear and bold message to the US and the rest of the Western powers.
The new policy expands the scope of Moscow using nuclear weapons. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “It was necessary to bring our principles in line with the current situation.”
According to the renewed nuclear doctrine, Russia will consider any aggression from a non-nuclear state, especially one backed by a nuclear power state, as a coordinated attack against Moscow and will retaliate in the same manner, Reuters reported.
The newly approved policy by Putin also allows the use of nuclear weapons in retaliation against any significant conventional assault on Russia, including drone attacks.
It is however notable that Zelenskyy has, for a long time, termed the use of US-made long-range missiles for the Ukrainian army as a key part of his “victory plan”.
The Ukrainian President reacted to reports of Biden’s approval to Kyiv, saying that strikes are not carried out with words and neither are such things announced. “Missiles will speak for themselves,” Zelenskyy said.