Just 48 hours after Joe Biden lifted the veto on their use, the American-made ATACMS missiles blew up logistics center 1046, that is, the Karachev arsenal, in the oblast Bryansk, an ammunition depot fueling the Russian effort in the disputed Kursk territory. Vladimir Putin’s red line, one more of those drawn up by the Kremlin autocrat was overtaken by the kyiv military.
This same Tuesday Vladimir Putin signed the new Russian nuclear doctrine which allows it to respond to a bombardment with conventional weapons on its territory with atomic weapons, although no one knows what Russia’s next move will be.
From Moscow they acknowledge that these missiles (six in total) have been launched from the Ukrainian side, but that they have not caused damage. As usual, the videos posted by the residents of the powder keg themselves which show a large fire mushroom, contradict the Kremlin’s official version. It is not the only projectile launched and little by little it will be known, thanks to satellite images, if others have managed to reach their objectives.
The head of Russian diplomacy later promised an “adequate” response to the Ukrainian launch of US missiles, denounced Washington’s involvement in these attacks and announced a “new phase” in the conflict.
“If long-range missiles are used from Ukraine towards Russian territory, means they are operated by US military experts. We will consider this as a new phase of the Western war against Russia and will respond accordingly,” Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Rio de Janeiro after the G20 summit.
The Russian Foreign Minister repeated an argument from Putin himself: “The Ukrainians cannot fire the ATACMS without the help of American experts and instructors” that they provide.satellite data, programming and guidance Lavrov said the use of ATACMS to attack Russian soil was “a sign” that Ukraine and the West “want escalation.”
As Ukraine has already acknowledged more than once, the Pentagon identifies Russian targets using satellites, while American personnel on the ground collect the coordinates and transmit them to kyiv, which then enter the data and execute the launch, in the same way. that the British collaborate with Ukrainian troops to launch Storm Shadow missiles.
In reality, this type of launch is not very different from what Russia itself uses. In your case, Moscow has acquired hundreds of KN-23 projectiles from Pyongyang whose launchers and specialists traveled to Russia and Ukrainian areas occupied by Russia to advise Russian troops on the use of these military devices.
Could the use of these missiles trigger a nuclear war? According to the majority of nuclear weapons experts, the atomic escalation has its own guidelines and should include, long before any attack launch in Ukraine, movements in the arsenals themselves, which already involve skipping several international treaties, and even an atomic test in some uninhabited place.