Ukraine’s military used long-range American-made missiles on Tuesday to strike into Russia for the first time, according to senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials, just two days after President Biden gave permission to do so in what amounted to a major shift of American policy.
The pre-dawn attack struck an ammunition warehouse in the Bryansk region of southwestern Russia. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement that Kyiv used six long-range ballistic missiles known as the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS. The senior American and Ukrainian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations, confirmed that ATACMS were used.
The strike represented a show of force for Ukraine as it tries to show Western allies that providing more powerful and sophisticated weapons will pay off by degrading Russia’s forces and bolstering Ukraine’s prospects in the war. Officials in Kyiv had pleaded for months for permission to use ATACMS to strike military targets deeper inside Russia before the Biden administration relented and gave its assent on Sunday.
The authorization just months before the return to office of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has said he will seek a quick end to the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed that five of the ATACMS missiles were shot down on Tuesday and another was damaged, saying that falling fragments caused a fire at the military facility but that there were no casualties.
The attack came on the same day President Vladimir V. Putin lowered Russia’s threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, a long-planned move whose timing appeared aimed at showing the Kremlin could respond aggressively to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with American long-range missiles.
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