dpa
Moscow/Kiev
Russia said on Tuesday that Ukraine fired six US-made ATACMS missiles at a target in Russia as the war reached its 1,000th day.
Five of the long-range missiles were shot down by Russian air defences and another one damaged, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said, in what would be the first such attack since the US allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS against targets inside Russian territory. The strike hit the Bryansk region that is north of Ukraine, with debris falling on a military site in the border area. Ukraine’s general staff said earlier that the Ukrainian armed forces targeted a Russian ammunition depot in Bryansk overnight.
The Ukrainian military said on Facebook that 12 secondary explosions had been observed at the depot, located near the Russian city of Karachev. "The object was successfully destroyed,” the news outlet RBK-Ukraina quoted an army source as saying.
Outgoing President Joe Biden changed US policy to allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons to strike targets on Russian territory, according to US media reports over the weekend. The US government has not publicly confirmed the change, but officials have also not disputed the reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the 1,000th day with a call for allies to push Moscow towards "a just peace.” In a video address to the European Parliament to thank Ukraine’s supporters, Zelensky said that Putin lacked the "real motivation” to engage in genuine peace negotiations.