Moscow claims Ukraine launched first strike on Russian soil with US missiles

The Ukrainian military has crossed another one of Russia’s red lines by using long-range U.S.-made ATACMS missiles in the Bryansk region, located roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Moscow. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense — which did not confirm the use of these missiles specifically — the strike targeted a Russian military facility.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, five missiles were intercepted and another damaged. This is the first time that Kyiv has been reported to have used Western-supplied long-range missiles to strike inside Russian territory. The Kremlin has previously warned that such actions would signify a breach of a major threshold, implicating direct U.S. involvement in the war.

“At 3.25 tonight the enemy struck a facility on the territory of the Bryansk region with six ballistic missiles. According to confirmed reports, U.S.-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles were used,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “Its fragments fell on the technical territory of a military facility in the Bryansk region, causing a fire, which was promptly extinguished.”

The Ukrainian news agency RBC-Ukraine quotes a Ukrainian army source as stating that these missiles have been used for the first time to attack a target in Russian territory, specifically a military facility in Karachev, located around 130 kilometers (80 miles) from the Ukrainian border, and that they reached their target. “The attack was successful,” asserted the Ukrainian media.

The Russian news channel Astra posted several images and videos on Telegram of the alleged strike on the facilities of the 67th arsenal of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of Russia. The videos, which could not be verified, show an intense blaze against the dark of night, accompanied by a prolonged loop of explosions, allegedly coming from ammunition stored at the arsenal.

“Residents say that the siren has been sounding since 2 a.m., but there was nowhere to hide,” Astra adds. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the area’s defenses were equipped with S-400 long-range and Pantsir short-range anti-aircraft systems.

“I have no doubt that our army has the situation under control,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, responded when asked at midday about the attack. The Kremlin, which at the time claimed not to have any data, published at the same time a presidential decree by which the new Russian nuclear doctrine comes into force as of Tuesday.

The document, which includes the guidelines to be followed for the “nuclear deterrence” of other powers, specifies that any attack perpetrated against Russia by a country which does not have nuclear weapons, but which has the support of a third state that is a nuclear power, will be considered a joint aggression on the part of both nations.

The U.S. media reported on November 17 that the outgoing U.S. administration of Joe Biden had authorized Ukraine to use its missiles on Russian territory. A day later, Peskov warned that this step would escalate the war. Putin, whose red lines have been crossed in the past, declared in September that an attack with ATACMS would mean that “NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”

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