Ukraine fires US-made long-range missiles at Russia, hours after Putin lowers nuclear weapons threshold | World news

Ukraine has fired American-made ATACMS missiles into Russian territory, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Six long-range missiles were launched in the Bryansk region, Russian state media channel RIA Novosti reported, citing the ministry.

Five missiles were shot down by air defense systems, while one was damaged. Its fragments fell on the territory of an unspecified military facility and caused a fire, the ministry added.

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The rockets caused no casualties, RIA Novosti said, according to the ministry.

The launch comes next President Joe Biden has lifted the restrictions on Ukraine using US-made longer-range missiles to strike targets deep within Russia.

The Ukrainian military confirmed that it had attacked a military facility about 70 miles inside Russia, but did not specify what weapons it had used. A Ukrainian official source and a US official reportedly confirmed to Reuters news agency that they used ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System).

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro that the attack on the Bryansk region was a “signal” that the West wanted an escalation.

Military experts have said that using US missiles to attack positions in Russia could help Ukraine defend Kursk – a sliver of Russian territory it captured in August – as a bargaining chip, but is unlikely to have a decisive impact on the outcome of the war.

Earlier on Tuesday President Vladimir Putin has formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons.

The new doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response from Moscow even in the event of a conventional attack on Russia by any country backed by a nuclear power.

Asked whether a Ukrainian attack using ATACMS missiles could potentially provoke a nuclear response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the doctrine considers that the Russian Federation “reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in case of aggression with the use of conventional weapons against it”, which is deemed to have created “a critical threat to sovereignty or territorial integrity”.

Moscow has often threatened the West over its support for Ukraine during the war, often raising the specter of a nuclear response.

However, most analysts have suggested that the warnings will not actually be followed up and are simply intended to deter Western countries from providing military support to Kiev.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer denounced the revised nuclear doctrine as the “latest example of irresponsibility” by “the depraved Russian government,” spokeswoman Camilla Marshall said.

“Russia is the one that continues to escalate this war, and the deployment of North Korean troops is just one example of that,” Marshall said.

The developments took place on the same day that the conflict in Ukraine entered its thousandth day.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Ukrainian parliament that the war had reached a decisive moment and revealed that Kiev was planning a massive increase in the production of offensive weapons.

He said the country will produce at least 30,000 long-range drones next year and plans to make at least 3,000 cruise missiles and rocket drones.

The Ukrainian president said he was working with all partners to win their support for longer-range attacks.

Read more:
Where do Russia and Ukraine stand militarily?
How Russia has created a climate of fear

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Britain also imposed sanctions on 10 Russian officials and state-linked youth organizations, which it said were involved in a systematic attempt to indoctrinate Ukraine’s children.

Ukrainian forces remain under heavy Russian pressure on the battlefield in places along the estimated 1,000-kilometer-long front line where the army is stretched thin. Ukrainian citizens have also been repeatedly targeted by Russian drones and missiles.