Russia has said that Ukraine’s use of long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles against its territory marked a “new phase of the Western war” against Moscow, and has said it will react “accordingly”.
Ukraine used the US-made missiles to target a military facility in Russia’s Bryansk border region overnight, Moscow said on Tuesday, just days after Washington gave the green light for Kyiv to use the long-range weapons against Russian targets, Al Jazeera reported.
The reported use of the ATACMS came as Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons, opening the door to a potential nuclear response by Moscow to even a conventional attack by any nation supported by a nuclear power.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Ukraine had struck Russia’s Bryansk region with six missiles, and that air defence systems intercepted five and damaged one.
“This is, of course, a signal that they want to escalate,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at a Group of 20 (G20) news conference in Brazil, said of the attack.
“We will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia. And we will react accordingly,” he added, accusing Washington of helping Kyiv operate the missiles.
Russia has long asserted that the ATACMS is programmed by United States specialists and requires guidance from US satellites.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said his country was working with all partners to win their support for longer-range strikes.
When asked about the attack in the Russian Bryansk region, Zelenskyy said Kyiv now had US-ATACMS systems as well as its own long-range capabilities, and would use all of them.
bd-pratidin/GR
