KIEV.- Ukraine said Tuesday that it fired long-range missiles supplied by the United States against Russian territory, inaugurating a “new phase of the war,” according to Moscow, which once again brandished the nuclear threat.
A senior official confirmed to AFP in kyiv that the Ukrainian military had bombed the Russian border region of Bryansk with American long-range ATACMS missiles, after Russia denounced that attack.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that this attack opens a “new phase of the West’s war against Russia” and promised an appropriate response, in statements to the press in Rio de Janeiro, where he participated in the G20 summit.
Last week, President Joe Biden’s government authorized Ukraine to hit Russian soil with its long-range missiles, in a strategic shift a few weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not directly refer to this new situation, but this Tuesday he signed a decree that expands the possibilities in which his country could resort to the use of nuclear weapons.
These possibilities include using nuclear weapons against a country without atomic weapons, such as Ukraine, but supported by a nuclear power, such as the United States.
The Kremlin explained that this measure was “necessary to adapt our fundamentals to the current situation.”
Putin warned in September that NATO countries would be “at war with Russia” if they allowed Ukraine to attack Russian territory with longer-range Western missiles.
According to the Russian army, “at 03:25 (0025 GMT), the enemy attacked a site in the Bryansk region with six ballistic missiles,” near the Ukrainian border.
Russian air defense managed to destroy five projectiles and damage one, he added.
Lavrov asserted that it is not possible to use these missiles “without the help of experts and instructors from the United States,” who provide “satellite data, programming and targeting.”
In addition, he considered that the use of ATACMS missiles against Russian territory is “a sign” that Ukraine and the West “want an escalation.”
“Ukraine can beat Russia”
Ukraine, faced with a Russian invasion for almost three years, had long requested authorization to use long-range Western weapons to attack bases from which Russia launches its bombings and counter the advance of Russian troops in the east.
In a message to the Ukrainian Parliament for the thousand days since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “Ukraine can defeat Russia.”
“It is very difficult, but we have the internal strength to achieve it,” he said to the applause of the parliamentarians.
However, the president admitted that kyiv may have to wait for the post-Putin era to “restore” its territorial integrity. Moscow currently occupies about 20% of Ukrainian territory.
It is the first time that Zelensky acknowledges that his country would have to accept, at least for a time, losing the territories occupied by the enemy.
“Don’t get away with it”
On the ground, Russian forces are advancing in several sectors, especially near Kurajove (east), where on Tuesday they claimed to have taken a new town.
In the northeast, in the Ukrainian border region of Sumi, an overnight Russian bombing killed ten people, including a child.
Zelensky posted a video showing rescue teams pulling bodies from the rubble.
At the diplomatic level, several European countries said they were willing to provide financial and military support to kyiv if Washington reduces its aid after Trump’s arrival to the White House in January.
The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, asked the bloc’s countries to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons provided by the 27 to attack targets inside Russia, as Washington did.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said it is “crucial that Putin does not get his way,” as this would leave a strengthened Russia on Europe’s borders.
“We are ready to provide what is necessary to Ukraine,” declared Rutte, for whom Russia represents “a direct threat to all of us in the West.”
