Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv uses US long-range missiles to blow up arms depot as Moscow issues warning
Ukraine hits Putin’s ammunition warehouse with ATACMS near Kursk on 1,000th day of war
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Your support makes all the difference.Ukraine has deployed the US-approved longer-range missile to hit Russia’s arms depot 110km deep inside the country on the 1,000th day of war, marking the first time since Joe Biden waived off the restrictions.
Ukrainian forces used the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) in a strike on Russia’s Bryansk region, prompting Moscow to issue a warning that it will respond “accordingly”. US officials told American media the ATACMS had been used to hit an ammunition warehouse which sits northwest of Kursk, the region on which a Ukrainian assault has been underway since the summer.
Within hours, Vladimir Putin signed a new nuclear doctrine lowering the threshold under which Russia can deploy atomic weapons to respond to attacks on its territory, warning Washington. The war-time Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the step showed “Putin wants war” and had no interest in peace.
This comes as Mr Biden approved provision of anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine, a US official said, a move by the US to help Ukraine slow Russian advances in its east.
The Kremlin has scrapped a special emergency hotline between Russia and the White House this morning.
Putin’s ‘irresponsible nuclear rhetoric’ will not deter UK support for Ukraine
US will send Ukraine at least $275 million in new weapons in push to bolster Kyiv before Trump
The Kremlin has revised its nuclear policy. Does that make the use of atomic weapons more likely?
Watch: Ukrainians light 1,000 candles to mark 1,000 days since Russia’s invasion
Kremlin says US authorisation for Ukraine to strike inside Russia 'adding fuel to the fire'
Russia commends German refusal to provide long-range missiles to Kyiv
Germany’s decision not to provide long-range missiles to Ukraine is a “responsible position”, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.
On Monday, Germany confirmed it would not provide long-range missiles despite recent U.S. approval for the use of American long-range missiles deep in Russia territory.
Ukraine fired its first U.S.-made long-range missile at Russia’s Bryansk region on Tuesday.
Lavrov described this as an escalation, saying: "Without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles, as Putin has repeatedly said.”
Mapped: Where did Ukraine strike Russia with an American long-range missile?
Ukraine has used a long-range American missile on targets inside Russia for the first time.
The military struck the area of Karachev in Russia’s southwestern Bryansk region, it said.
This is more than 100 kilometres into Russian territory.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ukraine’s General Staff said a strike hit the arsenal of the 1046th Logistics Support Center.
Multiple explosions were heard in the targeted area, the General Staff said. “The destruction of ammunition depots for the Russian occupying forces, aimed at ending Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine, will continue,” a statement read.
Zelensky: ‘Decisive moments’ in the war will come in next year
Addressing parliament, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the war’s “decisive moments” will come in the next year.
On the 1,000th day of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, Mr Zelensky told Kyiv’s legislators: “At this stage of the war, it is being decided who will prevail. Whether us over the enemy, or the enemy over us Ukrainians... and Europeans. And everyone in the world who wants to live freely and not be subject to a dictator.”
A candlie-lit commemmoration is planned for later on Tuesday after thousands of Ukrainian citizens have died, over six million have been displaced as refugees and the population has fallen by a quarter.
Editorial: At last Biden is taking real steps to help Ukraine – but is it too little too late?
“What took you so long, Joe?” President Biden’s belated decision to allow Ukrainian armed forces to deploy a key US-supplied missile system deeper into Russian territory will be a welcome boost to morale in Kyiv, as well as being of some material help. It should also prompt the British and French to follow suit and to generally encourage other allies to boost their support for Ukraine.
However, it is painful to reflect on how much more effective this change in tactics would have been had the move been made, say, a year or two ago. In hindsight, President Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats about escalation proved to be empty – and now no one thinks he’s about to bomb New York, Paris or London in revenge for the West giving the Ukrainians more firepower. As it is, in the dying days of the Biden administration, it seems unlikely to be the kind of “game changer” that President Zelensky and his long-suffering people have been virtually begging from the West since the earliest days of this conflict.
Read The Independent’s editorial:
Biden is now taking real steps to help Ukraine – but is it too little too late?
Editorial: The US president sends a signal on his way out and although President-Elect Trump has a distaste for America’s involvement in the Ukraine war, that doesn’t mean he will bow down to Putin
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