Ukraine fires ATACMS missiles into Russia, officials say

DW spoke with former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who said that although permission to use long-range missiles was not a "silver bullet," it did "underpin Ukraine's effort to liberate its territory and deter the Russians."

Moscow described the attack as an escalation marking a new phase in the war, even updating its nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold at which Russia would consider deploying atomic weapons — a threat which Yatsenyuk believes is a bluff.

Asked about German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's continued refusal to supply long-range German Taurus missiles to Ukraine for fear of provoking Russia further, Yatsenyuk asked rhetorically: "What other escalation can Russia commit?"

Referring not only to atrocities committed against Ukrainian civilians in occupied territories but also to "assassinations, poisonings, acts of sabotage, cyber-attacks" in western countries, he said: "Russia is already waging a proxy war against NATO."

"If Germany wants to stop this war, and if Germany wants actually to support its own security, the best response to the fully-fledged invasion waged by Russia is a full flow of support for Ukraine. Not a drip-drip approach, but full support."

Finally, Yatsenyuk called on the collective West to see the bigger picture, saying: "[Putin] is not only looking the capitulation of Ukraine but that of the entire free world — and he's not alone."

Describing the global context of Chinese and North Korean support for Russia, and Iranian support of terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen, he claimed: "This war is about more than just Ukraine. This is a war of an axis of evil, of a quartet of dictators against the free world and against your security."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested on Tuesday that Kyiv may have to accept temporary Russian occupation of part of its territory while Vladimir Putin remains in the Kremlin.

Speaking to the Ukrainian parliament 1,000 days on from Russia's full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy told lawmakers: "Perhaps Ukraine needs to outlive someone in Moscow to achieve its goals and restore the entire national territory."

With the help of western weaponry, Ukraine has managed to stall the Russian advance in most places, but has seemingly not received enough to go on the offensive itself and recapture the approximately 18% of Ukrainian sovereign territory currently occupied by Russian forces.

And with US President-elect Donald Trump making promises to end the war when he returns to the White House, speculation has mounted about the possibility of "freezing" the conflict along the current frontlines, without Kyiv legally ceding territory to Russia.

"We are not waiving Ukraine's rights to its territory," insisted Zelenskyy.

The United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom have condemned Russia's nuclear threats as "irresponsible" after Moscow altered its nuclear doctrine in response to Ukraine's use of long-range US-supplied ATACMS missiles.

"This is more of the same irresponsible rhetoric from Russia, which we have seen for the past two years," a spokesperson for the US National Security Council told the French AFP news agency.

The spokesperson added that "we were not surprised by Russia's announcement that it would update its nuclear doctrine" and that Moscow had been "signaling its intent" to do so for several weeks.

"Observing no changes to Russia's nuclear posture, we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture or doctrine in response to Russia's statements today," they concluded.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, also accused Moscow of being "completely irresponsible," saying: "It is not the first time that Putin has played the nuclear gamble."

"Russia has subscribed to the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won, and so must never be fought," he added, warning that "any call for nuclear warfare is an irresponsibility."

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also criticized "irresponsible rhetoric coming from Russia," saying the Kremlin's threats are "not going to deter our support for Ukraine. We need to ensure that Ukraine has what is needed for as long as it's needed to win this war."

The International Monetary Fund and Ukrainian authorities have reached an agreement that would give Ukraine access to about $1.1 billion (€1.04 billion), the IMF said, adding that its executive board must still weigh in on the deal.

If approved, the agreement would bring the total amount disbursed to Ukraine under the program to $9.8 billion, the IMF statement said, adding that the board was expected to review the deal in the coming weeks.

"The outlook remains exceptionally uncertain, and Russia's war in Ukraine continues to take a heavy toll on Ukraine's people, economy, and infrastructure," the fund's staff wrote, adding that despite these challenges, the program "remains on track."

The IMF's four-year program is worth more than $15 billion.

The agreement will provide Ukraine with a large injection of funds amid Russia's ongoing assault on the country.  It should also ensure that Kyiv receives the money before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January

A senior Ukrainian official confirmed that his military had used US-supplied longer-range ATACMS missiles to strike inside Russian territory for the first time.

"The attack on the Bryansk region was carried out with ATACMS missiles," the source told AFP, without giving further details. 

Earlier, Forbes Ukraine also quoted the anonymous military source as saying Ukrainian forces had used ATACMS to hit the arsenal in Russia's Bryansk region.

When asked about an attack on a weapons depot in the Bryansk region, Ukrainian President Volodymytr Zelenskyy didn't explicitly confirm the strike, but said Kyiv now had US-made ATACMS systems as well as its own long-range capabilities, and would use all of them.

He also said that Ukraine was working with all partners to win their support for longer-range strikes, and that it was time for Germany to support Ukraine's longer-range strike capabilities against Russia.

US President Joe Biden just this week authorized Ukraine to use ATACMS, the longest-range missiles supplied by Washington, for such attacks inside Russia.

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine's use of longer-range ATACMS missiles against its territory marked a "new phase of the Western war" against Moscow and vowed to respond.

"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.

He said it was a clear signal that the West wanted to escalate the conflict and accused Washington of helping Kyiv operate the missiles. "Without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles, as (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has repeatedly said," the minister said.

Lavrov also said he hoped Moscow's new nuclear doctrine, in which Putin lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike, would be read carefully.

He added, however, that Russia would do everything possible to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war and that nuclear weapons would serve as a deterrent to nuclear war.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz discussed Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Rio, Brazil, where the G20 summit is being held.

Scholz stressed that it was "important" for the two economic powers to discuss Russia's aggression against Ukraine or other dangerous situations elsewhere in the world.

"No one should have to fear their neighbors. That is a very central principle of peace in the world, which we are committed to," Scholz said in a possible reference to Ukraine or Taiwan.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron, who also had a bilateral meeting with Xi, said he shared the desire to see durable peace in Ukraine.

China and Russia declared a "no limits" partnership when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing less than three weeks before his troops marched into Ukraine in February 2022.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine fired six US-made ATACMS missiles at Russia's Bryansk region. 

The ministry said the military shot down five of them and damaged another. The fragments fell on the territory of an unspecified military facility, and the falling debris sparked a fire but didn't cause any damage or casualties, it said. 

The announcement comes shortly after Washington lifted restrictions on Ukraine's use of longer-range US-made missiles to strike Russia. 

Ukraine did not immediately confirm the use of ATACMS in a strike on Russia's Bryansk region.  

Earlier Tuesday, however, the Ukrainian military said it had carried out a strike on an arsenal in the Karachev area of Russia's Bryansk region without specifying what weapons were used. 

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war has reached a decisive moment as he addressed Ukraine's parliament to mark 1,000 days since Russia's full-scale invasion.

In an hour-long speech, Zelenksyy said Ukraine would not trade its sovereignty or give up its right to its territories, and he ruled out holding new elections until peace is achieved.

Unveiling his internal "resilience plan," the Ukrainian leader urged his people and officials to remain united, saying the war had reached a crucial juncture that would determine which side, Ukraine or Russia, would prevail.

"At this stage of the war, it is being decided who will prevail — whether us over the enemy, or the enemy over us Ukrainians... and Europeans, and everyone in the world who wants to live freely and not be subject to a dictator," Zelenksyy said.

The president also said Ukraine would produce at least 30,000 long-range drones next year, a weapons system that Kyiv has used to narrow the gap in strike capabilities with Russia and strike targets deep inside its much larger eastern neighbor.

Ukraine also aims to produce at least 3,000 cruise missiles and missile drones, he said, without giving a timeframe.

The UK has imposed sanctions on 10 individuals and entities behind Russia's "forcible deportation and attempted indoctrination of Ukrainian children."

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the sanctions are aimed at those supporting this "insidious program."

"No child should ever be used as a pawn in war, yet President Putin's targeting of Ukrainian children shows the depths he will go to in his mission to erase Ukraine and its people from the map," Lammy said.

The measures are part of ongoing efforts by Britain and its Western allies to weaken Russia’s economy and war funding.  The UK estimates that nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia or Russian-occupied territories with the goal of eroding their Ukrainian identity and promoting pro-Russian sentiment.

The sanctions target the All-Russian Young Army Military Patriotic Social Movement (Yunarmia), a Russian paramilitary organization central to Putin's attempts to forcibly deport and indoctrinate Ukraine's younger generation, the statement added.

Among those sanctioned by Britain on Tuesday was Tetiana Zavalska, the Russian-appointed director of the Kherson Children's Home, from which London says 46 children were forcibly removed to Russia for adoption. All of those sanctioned face travel bans and asset freezes in Britain.

The European element of the NATO defense alliance must be further strengthened, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said after talks with her counterparts from Poland, France, Italy, Spain and Britain.

"We agree that in order to protect our security and safeguard our deterrent capabilities, we must further strengthen the European pillar in NATO," Baerbock told reporters, adding that they plan to invest more than 2% of gross domestic product in security.

Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom said in a joint statement that Russia's systematic attacks on Europe's security architecture are "unprecedented in their variety and scale." 

"Moscow's escalating hybrid activities against NATO and EU countries are unprecedented in their variety and scale, creating significant security risk," the ministers said, reaffirming the enduring role of a strong and united NATO. 

Russia said its forces had captured a new village in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region near the strategic town of Kurakhove after months of steady advances.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops captured the settlement of Novoselydivka, north of the key hub of Kurakhove.

Moscow's army is now advancing rapidly in the Donetsk region, closing in on the industrial town of Kurakhove, which had a pre-war population of about 10,000. 

Russian troops now control territory to the north, east and south of Kurakhove, which sits on the banks of a reservoir. 

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has backed Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his continued refusal to send German-made Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. 

The position of the German government as a whole has not changed, Pistorius said in Brussels, where he is attending a meeting of EU defense ministers. 

At the same time, Pistorius said the reported decision by US President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to use longer-range ATACMS missiles to attack targets on Russian territory was legitimate. 

"With Taurus, we are talking about a system that is still very different from all the others used in Ukraine," Pistorius said.

Pistorius also defended Scholz's decision to speak with Putin in an hour-long phone call and added that the call provided further evidence Putin has little interest in negotiating with the West over Ukraine or other issues.

"I think it was not as effective as all of us would have hoped, because Putin reacted more or less at once in between 48 hours with his serious attacks, severe attacks on Ukraine infrastructure. But still, it is important to talk whenever it is possible to talk," Pistorius said.

Pistorius said he is "concerned" about how Ukraine can strengthen its position with Western support so that Putin sees the need and the understanding to negotiate. "At the moment, this is not apparent," the defense minister added.

In a virtual address to the European Parliament marking 1,000 days since Russia's full-scale invasion of his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked lawmakers for their support but added that more should be done to push Russia toward a just peace.

"Not a single day during these 1,000 days of this terrible war became a day of betrayal of our European shared values," the Ukrainian president told a European Parliament decorated with the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

"Together we have succeeded... in defending the freedom of all European nations," Zelenskyy said. "We must push Russia towards a just peace."

Strong sanctions are essential to limit Russia's war effort, Zelenskyy said. "Together we achieved much, but we must not fear doing even more," he added.

The Ukrainian leader said that the number of North Korean troops stationed in Russia could rise; "Now, Putin has brought 11,000 North Korean troops to Ukraine's borders. This contingent may grow to 100,000. While some European leaders think about some elections at Ukraine's expense, Putin is focused on winning this war."

Zelenskyy also warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin "will not stop on his own."

"The more time he has, the worse the conditions become. Every day is the best moment to push Russia harder," Zelenksyy said. "He values only money and power, the things we have to take from him."

A standing ovation from the EU lawmakers concluded Zelenskyy's speech after he thanked them for their support and visits to Ukraine during "difficult times."