Ukraine fires long-range US missiles into Russia

Moscow vows response after Kyiv uses ATACMS

KYIV:

Russia warned on Tuesday that it would respond after Ukraine fired longer-range US missiles at its territory for the first time, as President Vladimir Putin issued a nuclear threat on the 1,000th day of the war.

A senior official told AFP that a strike on Russia's Bryansk region earlier on Tuesday "was carried out by ATACMS missiles" -- a reference to the US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System.

Speaking 1,000 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the attack showed Western countries wanted to "escalate" the conflict.

"We will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia. And we will react accordingly," Lavrov told a press conference at the G20 summit in Brazil.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Tuesday lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons, a move that the White House, UK and European Union condemned as "irresponsible".

Putin has used nuclear rhetoric throughout the conflict but has grown increasingly belligerent since last year, pulling out of a nuclear test ban treaty and a key arms reduction agreement with the US.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky accused G20 leaders at a summit in Brazil of failing to act over Putin's nuclear threats, saying the Russian leader had no interest in peace.

A Russian strike in the eastern Ukrainian region of Sumy late Monday gutted a Soviet-era residential building and killed at least 12 people, including a child, according to officials.

Washington this week said it had cleared Ukraine to use ATACMS against military targets inside Russia -- a long-standing Ukrainian request.

Russia said on Tuesday that Ukraine had used the missiles against a facility in the Bryansk region close to the border overnight.

"At 03:25 am (0025 GMT), the enemy struck a site in the Bryansk region with six ballistic missiles. According to confirmed data, US-made ATACMS tactical missiles were used," said a defence ministry statement.

Lavrov said the 300-kilometre (186-mile) range missiles could not have been fired without US technical assistance.

Moscow has said the use of Western weapons against its internationally recognised territory would make the US a direct participant in the conflict.

Confirmation of the strike came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that enables Moscow to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states such as Ukraine if they are supported by nuclear powers.

The new nuclear doctrine also allows Moscow to unleash a nuclear response in the event of a "massive" air attack, even if it is only with conventional weapons.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this was "necessary to bring our principles in line with the current situation."