For 1st Time, Ukraine Uses US ATACMS To Hit Weapons Depot Inside Russia

The Ukrainians for the first time used US weapons to hit a weapons depot inside Russia, 70 miles from the border. 

The strike was intended to degrade Russian ammunition and logistics capabilities, but also to send a message to the Kremlin and to Ukraine's supporters that it intends to use this new permission in ways that will make it even more difficult for Russia to continue its war. JL

Siobhan O'Grady and colleagues report in the Washington Post:

Ukraine fired at least six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at a weapons depot in the Bryansk region on Tuesday, the first use of the weapons against a target inside Russia. The strike “caused fire damage” to “warehouses with ammunition for the army of the Russians,” in Karachev in Russia’s Bryansk region, just over 70 miles from the Ukraine border.

Ukraine fired at least six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at a weapons depot in the Bryansk region on Tuesday, the first use of the weapons against a target inside Russia, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials.

 

The Russian Defense Ministry played down the effectiveness of the attack, however. “Ukraine’s armed forces last night struck a facility in the Bryansk region with six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles, with five missiles shot down and one damaged,” the ministry said in a statement.

A Ukrainian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, confirmed the use of the weapon systems overnight and officials in the Defense Ministry said the target was in Bryansk.

On Sunday, it was reported that Washington was reversing a long-standing policy of forbidding Ukrainian forces from using the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS inside Russia. The move came after about 10,000 elite North Korean troops were sent to Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have taken territory.

 

In the wake of the lifting of restrictions, Russian officials warned that the United States was provoking open war with Russia and on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the country’s new nuclear policy. First announced in September, it declares that a conventional attack by a country with the support of a nuclear power would be seen as a joint attack.

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“The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of conventional aggression against it,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Speaking in Rio de Janeiro, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “the fact that ATACMS were repeatedly used against the Bryansk region last night is a clear signal that they want an escalation.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukraine’s military general staff said in a post on Facebook that its forces had “caused fire damage” to “warehouses with ammunition for the army of the Russian occupiers,” in the city of Karachev in Russia’s Bryansk region, just over 70 miles from the Ukraine border.

The statement did not specify that ATACMS had been used, however. The attack caused “12 secondary explosions and detonations in the area of the target.”

Andriy Kovalenko, a member of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said the depot included glide bombs, antiaircraft missiles and ammunition for weapons systems supplied by North Korea.

“This depot supported Russian operations specifically in the Kursk region,” Kovalenko said, adding that it was also used to shell Kharkiv and Sumy in eastern Ukraine and border regions.

Ukrainian use of ATACMS was expected to focus in and around the Kursk region, though it could expand, officials said. Bryansk is about 130 miles north of the Kursk region.