Newsman: Ukraine carried out its first time strike using six longer-range U.S.-provided “ballistic missiles” (ATACMS on Tuesday. President Joe Biden lifted a ban on Ukraine using the ATACMS missiles to strike targets deeper within Russia’s borders. Biden has now granted Ukraine that permission, multiple outlets reported on Sunday, although the White House has yet to formally make the announcement.
Kremlin has updated its nuclear weapons doctrine to allow for nuclear strikes in response to foreign ballistic missile attacks.
The Ukrainian strike hit a weapons depot near the city of Karachev inside Russia’s Bryansk region, more than 70 miles from Ukraine’s border.
Russia’s defense ministry said it intercepted five of the missiles and damaged one. Falling debris from one missile fell on a military site, lighting it on fire, according to Russian state media.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that the reported ATACMS attack is a signal that Western nations “want escalation.”
“It is impossible to use these high-tech missiles without the Americans, as Putin has repeatedly said,” Lavrov said during a press conference at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Shortly before Kremlin updated its nuclear weapons doctrine Two U.S. officials also confirmed to ABC News that Ukraine had for the first time fired ATACMS at targets in Russia.
The changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine were unveiled several weeks ago but only signed by Putin on Tuesday, as officials in Moscow expressed anger at the U.S. decision to allow ATACMS use on Russian territory. The doctrine now says Russia can launch a nuclear attack against a country assisting a non-nuclear country in aggression against Russia that critically threatens the country’s state integrity.
Moscow has repeatedly threatened nuclear weapon use against Ukraine and its Western partners throughout its full-scale invasion of the country.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that it defeated a Ukrainian ATACMS attack in the western Bryansk region. Ukrainian forces fired six “ballistic missiles,” the Russian Defense Ministry wrote on its official Telegram page, five of which were downed and the sixth damaged. “According to confirmed data, American-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles were used,” it wrote.
“ATACMS fragments fell on the technical territory of a military facility in the Bryansk region, a fire broke out, it was extinguished,” the ministry added.
The ministry alleged the attack shortly after Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists that the changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine — signed by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday — meant “the use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia can prompt a nuclear response.”
Peskov’s remarks came after three U.S. officials confirmed to ABC News that President Joe Biden had approved Ukraine’s use of the long-range American-made MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System — colloquially known as the ATACMS — to hit targets in Russia’s western Kursk region.
The platform uses an improved inertial guidance system combined with GPS to zero in on designated targets. Kyiv is entirely reliant on the U.S. for replacement missiles.
The Biden administration hasn’t publicly confirmed the ATACMS policy change. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told journalists at a Monday briefing he would not confirm or deny approval for ATACMS use inside Russia, but said the U.S. response to Russian and North Korean military cooperation in the war “would be firm.”
The U.S. already provided Ukraine with the long-range missiles, which can reach up to 190 miles. But the Biden administration stopped short of allowing Ukraine’s military to use them to strike targets within Russia’s borders to avoid provoking a nuclear response from Russia, which has said the move would more directly involve the U.S. in the war.
