Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, days after U.S. President Joe Biden eased restrictions on Ukrainian use of American-made weapons in the war that has reached its 1,000-day milestone.
Ukraine claimed it hit a military weapons depot in Bryansk in the middle of the night, though it didn't specify what weapons it used. The Ukrainian General Staff said that multiple explosions and detonations were heard in the targeted area.
In a statement carried out by Russian news agencies, the Russian Defense Ministry said the military shot down five Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, and damaged one more.
The fragments fell on the territory of an unspecified military facility, the ministry said. The falling debris sparked a fire, but didn’t inflict any damage or casualties, it said.
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Neither side's claims could be independently verified.
The announcement came after Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer-range weapons after Russia deployed thousands of North Korean troops in the conflict.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported a third Russian strike in three days on a civilian residential area in Ukraine killed at least 12 people, including a child.
The strike by a Shahed drone in the northern Sumy region late Monday hit a dormitory of an educational facility in the town of Hlukhiv and wounded 11 others, including two children, authorities said, adding that more people could be trapped under the rubble.
Ukrainian civilians have repeatedly been clobbered by Russian drones and missiles during the war, while on the battlefield it is under severe Russian pressure at places on the about 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line where its army is stretched thin against a bigger adversary.
On Sunday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and wounding 84 others. On Monday, a Russian missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and wounding 43.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the series of aerial strikes proved that Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn't interested in ending the war.
“Each new attack by Russia only confirms Putin’s true intentions. He wants the war to continue. Talks about peace are not interesting to him. We must force Russia to a just peace by force,” Zelenskyy said.
