Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday said that Ukraine’s armed forces had used US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) long-range missiles for the first time.
“They have performed very accurately. ATACMS have proven themselves,” he said in an evening address posted on social media, without giving details of when or where they were used.
The White House confirmed the delivery for the first time in an official statement.
Photo: Reuters
“We believe these ATACMS will provide a significant boost to Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities without risking our [US] military readiness,” US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
ATACMS have a maximum range of about 300km, but Watson said the version “recently” sent to Ukraine had a lower range of 165km.
“Today, a special thanks to the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a video message. “Our agreements with [US] President [Joe] Biden are being implemented.”
Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov yesterday criticized Washington’s decision to supply Ukraine with the long-range missiles.
“The White House’s decision to send long-range missiles to Ukrainians is a grave mistake. The consequences of this step, which was deliberately hidden from the public, will be of the most serious nature,” he said in a statement.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ukraine said that it had hit airfields in the Russian-occupied south and east of the country overnight.
Kyiv said it had destroyed nine helicopters, an air defense launcher and an ammunition warehouse, and damaged runways.
It also claimed Russian forces had suffered losses in the operation. Zelenskiy said Kyiv’s “assault operations” had achieved results.
In a mission dubbed Operation Dragonfly, Kyiv’s special forces said on social media that they had attacked airfields in southern Berdyansk and eastern Lugansk.
Russian officials had said earlier that the US-supplied missiles had been used in the attack on Berdyansk.
A Moscow-backed official in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Vladimir Rogov, said on Telegram that fragments of ATACMS missiles had been found at the site of the strike.
Russian Telegram channel Rybar, which has close ties with Moscow’s forces, also said that ATACMS missiles were used in the attack.
Kyiv, which launched its counteroffensive against Russian forces this summer, has claimed to have carried out several operations in occupied territory.
Berdyansk fell to Russian forces early in their invasion last year. Lugansk has mostly been controlled by pro-Russia forces since 2014.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home