Several Ukrainian media, cited by The Kyiv Independent, reported on Tuesday (November 19) that Ukraine had fired US ATACMS missiles into Russian territory for the first time, targeting an arms depot.
The Russian Ministry of Defense also announced an attack on its soil with these tactical missiles, the use of which Joe Biden authorized last weekend against targets in Russia.
Until now, these weapons with a range of 300 kilometers had only been used against targets in occupied Ukrainian territory. This time, it is the Russian town of Karachev, in the Bryansk region, around 130 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, which is believed to have been hit, as the two countries today mark the thousandth day of the large-scale invasion. scale of Ukraine.
American sources confirmed the attack New York Times, who sees a “show of force” from kyiv for Westerners.
Russia reacted strongly to the decision of the outgoing president of the United States on the subject of these missiles, a major shift announced a few weeks before giving way to Donald Trump, recalls the New York newspaper.
The Russian opposition website Medusa reported this Tuesday that Vladimir Putin issued a decree modifying Russian nuclear doctrine. According to the new doctrine, the use of nuclear weapons can be justified in response to a “aggression against Russia and its allies by any non-nuclear state supported by a nuclear state”.
“Warning to the United States”
The Guardian sees in this decree, which “lowers the threshold for resorting to nuclear weapons”, and “warning to the United States”. “Even though Russia has been planning to update its nuclear doctrine for several months, the timing of Putin's signing of this decree will clearly be seen as a reaction to Joe Biden's decision,” writes the British daily.
Moreover, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, “appeared to suggest bluntly that Russia could retaliate with nuclear weapons if Ukraine used Western-supplied missiles to target targets inside Russia,” add The Guardian.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reacted from Rio de Janeiro, where he is participating in the G20, to Tuesday's alleged attack. According to him, it represents “a signal” of a desire for escalation on the part of the West, also reports The Guardian.
He also affirmed that Russia wanted to avoid a nuclear war, continues the British daily, which sees this as a “slight attenuation” in the tone used by Moscow.
