Russia claims to have sustained a strike against a military depot by American-made ATACMS ballistic missiles early Tuesday morning, which would be a confirmation of an alleged change in U.S. policy on long-range strikes, if true.
Both sides of the Ukraine war appear to agree that Kyiv launched an attack on the Russian Federation on Tuesday morning. The two accounts differ on the effectiveness of the strike, and while Kyiv doesn’t specify what kind of weapon was used, Russia states it has proof it was hit with an American Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missile.
The attack comes just days after reports stated the Joe Biden White House had changed its mind on allowing Ukraine to use American-made missiles to attack Russia itself. Moscow has warned this would constitute a serious escalation of the conflict if not an outright act of war by the U.S. and as Russia changed its nuclear doctrine on Tuesday morning to encompass Ukrainian missile strikes.
Comments from leading Kremlin figures and the changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine publicised this morning all at least implied that a Ukrainian strike deep into the Russian interior with American-supplied missiles would be interpreted as an attack against the country by the United States through a proxy. As stated, some analysists have said this rhetoric was likely intended by Moscow to warn Washington about the seriousness of the long-range missile decision, and to give it a chance to walk the leaked policy before it was made official.
Nevertheless, the strike appears to have gone ahead. Ukrainian media, including state media, claim the attack was a hit on a military supplies facility identified as an arsenal of the 1046th Logistics Centre near Karachev, in the Bryansk Oblast. Between Ukraine’s border and Moscow, Karachev is about 70 miles from the Ukrainian border, well within the 190-mile official range of the weapon system.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine they recorded “12 secondary explosions and a detonation” in connection to the strike. Formerly Russian-owned Ukrainian broadcaster RBC-Ukraine states, in a report cited by Bloomberg on Tuesday, that a Ukrainian government insider told them ATACAMS had been used.
The Russian Ministry of Defence say they have “confirmed data” stating the strike was with ATACMS missiles, of which they say there were six. A spokesman for the Kremlin said five of those were shot down and one “damaged” by Russian air defence, but nevertheless fragments of the missiles still rained down on the target, starting fires. Per the claims, the fires were “quickly extinguished” and there were no injuries or damage.
Moscow also stated there was a concurrent attack on the same Bryansk Oblast by a flight of 12 Ukrainian attack drones, which it also said were shot down.
Ukraine has had ATACMS missiles since 2023, but their usage was restricted by the United States donor, which stipulated — to prevent escalation of the conflict — that the long-range missiles could only be used to strike Russian targets inside Ukraine’s official borders. Ukraine has had some impressive sucesses with ATACMS-like modern ballistic ‘bunker-buster’ missiles against Russian targets in occupied areas, including a spectacular direct hit on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea and hits on Russian warships in that area.
Tuesday morning’s strike came just hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin made official his country’s new nuclear doctrine, which includes in its purview — it appears — precisely such attacks. As reported:
Per a statement from Moscow: “The amended doctrine expands the range of countries and military alliances subject to nuclear deterrence, as well as the list of military threats that such deterrence is designed to counter”.
Crucially for Western military planners, Russia now considers “any attack” by a non-nuclear country that is supported by a nuclear power — as could be argued is the case with the United State, France, and the United Kingdom’s support of Ukraine — as a “joint attack” and liable to a nuclear response. Such attacks include conventional weapon strikes that threaten Russian “sovereignty” and “large-scale launch of enemy aircraft, missiles, and drones targeting Russian territory”.
