Ukraine is attacking Russia with US-made ATACMS missiles with longer range, Moscow says

Updated November 19, 2024 at 10:56 AM ET

MOSCOW — Ukraine has fired six ATACMS missiles at Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday, marking the first possible attack using U.S.-made longer-range weapons in 1,000 days of war.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukrainian forces fired the Army Tactical Missile System into the Bryansk region. It said Russian air defense systems destroyed five of the missiles in mid-flight and damaged a sixth, the fragments of which caused a small fire on the ground. No injuries have been reported.

If confirmed, this barrage appears to be the result of the Biden administration’s decision — which has been reported by NPR and other news media — to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of advanced Western long-range weapons to target Russia.

Ukrainian officials have not confirmed the reports.

Russia says it has not yet received official notice of the White House’s decision to approve Ukraine’s use of Western long-range missiles to hit targets in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that if media reports are true that Ukraine now has US approval to use Western weapons to attack deep into Russia, the decision amounts to a “new spiral of tensions ” with Washington.

Peskov also said Moscow’s position was well known, referring to President Vladimir Putin’s comments in September. At the time, Putin argued that the Ukrainian military was unable to deploy advanced long-range weapons without direct input from NATO specialists.

“This will mean that the NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia,” Putin concluded.

Ukraine had been lobbying Washington for months for permission to use the ATACMS.

On the same day that reports of the possible ATACMS attacks in Ukraine emerged, Putin signed a decree updating Russia’s nuclear doctrine – essentially expanding the options for carrying out a nuclear attack.

The new doctrine, which Putin announced in September, would consider an attack with conventional weapons by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear-armed nation as a joint attack on Russia that could meet the conditions for a nuclear response.

That seemed to be a warning to Ukraine, the United States and other proponents of nuclear weapons.

Both the news of possible Ukrainian attacks and the updated Russian nuclear doctrine come about two months before President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to take the oath of office in Washington.

In his campaign for president, Trump criticized the level of U.S. aid to Ukraine and repeatedly suggested he would seek a quickly negotiated end to Ukraine’s war with Moscow.

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