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Ukraine has struck a military target inside Russia using US-made long-range Atacms missiles for the first time since Joe Biden’s administration lifted restrictions on their use, according to people familiar with the matter.
Army Tactical Missile System, or Atacms, warheads hit a large weapons arsenal near the town of Karachev in Russia’s Bryansk region on Tuesday, more than 115km from the Ukrainian border, the people said.
The depot is 190km north of the frontline in the neighbouring Kursk region, where Russian forces are trying to push out Ukrainian troops who occupy about 600 sq km of territory after their surprise incursion in August.
The Russian ministry of defence confirmed that an attack on its soil had taken place, but said its air defence systems shot down five of six Atacms missiles over the Bryansk region.
Videos circulated on Telegram showed a military facility in flames and a smoke trail in the sky above it.
One video posted by Ukrainian blogger Ihor Lachenkov, who has close ties to the Ukrainian armed forces, purported to show the launch of two Atacms missiles.
“The first stars have taken off; the sky looks beautiful when Russian ammunition depots explode,” Lachenkov said in a comment accompanying the video.
The missile strikes came on the 1,000th day of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and after more than a year of Kyiv pleading with Washington to allow their use inside Russia to strike military equipment before it was deployed on the battlefield.
People familiar with Biden’s decision said the US president granted limited use of the Atacms inside Russia, adding that they would most likely be used to help Ukraine in its operation in the Kursk region.
Russia has amassed a force of 50,000 soldiers in Kursk, including 10,000 North Koreans armed with heavy artillery and rocket systems sent by Pyongyang, ahead of an expected operation to try to expel the Ukrainians.
The US president’s decision marked a major US policy shift ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January. The president-elect has said he will swiftly bring the war in Ukraine to an end, but has not specified how he would do so.
Ukraine’s General Staff did not confirm the use of Atacms but claimed responsibility for the strikes on the Russian arsenal, which it had previously attacked with drones.
“The destruction of ammunition depots will continue for the army of the Russian occupiers in order to stop the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine,” it said.
The attack was followed by 12 secondary explosions and detonations in the area of the strike, the General Staff said.
Neither the White House nor Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office has confirmed the US authorisation of the use of the Atacms. Following reports of the US policy shift, Zelenskyy said that “such things are not announced”.
“The missiles will speak for themselves,” he added.
Speaking to PBS News Hour on Monday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan declined to confirm that Biden had authorised Kyiv’s use of Atacms but said he would “point out, though, for context . . . that Russia has just engaged in a massive escalation in this war”.
“They have brought in a foreign army, North Korea, North Korean troops, to the front lines of the battle, and that represents a sea change in the nature of this conflict,” he said.
Cartography by Steven Bernard