MOSCOW – Russia has vowed to retaliate after it accused Ukraine of firing US-supplied ATACMS missiles at the border region of Belgorod the previous day.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden authorized Kyiv to use the long-range weapons against Russia last year, in a move Moscow denounced as a grave escalation of the nearly three-year conflict.
“On Jan. 3, an attempt was made from Ukrainian territory to launch a missile strike against the Belgorod region using US-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles,” the Russian defense ministry said.
“These actions by the Kyiv regime, which is supported by Western curators, will be met with retaliation,” it added, saying all the missiles were shot down.
Kyiv’s use of the missile systems has infuriated the Kremlin, which has threatened to hit central Kyiv with a hypersonic ballistic missile in response to the strikes.
ATACMS missiles have a maximum range of 300 kilometres (190 miles), according to publicly available data.
US President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview published last month he was “very vehemently” opposed to Ukraine using the arms, which he said were “escalating” the conflict.
In Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, a Ukrainian “kamikaze” drone killed a reporter from Russia’s Izvestia newspaper as he was travelling on a highway between two Russian-held cities, the paper said.
Alexander Martemyanov, who worked freelance for the paper, was returning from covering shelling in the Russian-held city of Gorlivka with colleagues when their car was hit, Russia’s state RIA news agency said.
A journalist from RIA and four other media workers were wounded in the attack, the agency added.
Both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of fatal attacks on civilians since the year began.
A Russian strike on a village in Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region earlier on Saturday killed a 74-year-old man, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.
Moscow also struck a town in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, destroying part of an apartment building and wounding seven including a two-year-old girl, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, a 10-year-old boy was killed and his parents injured when a drone hit their car, the region’s Moscow-installed head Yevgeny Balitsky said.
Russia’s defence ministry meanwhile said on Saturday it had captured the Ukrainian village of Nadiia, one of the few settlements in the eastern Lugansk region still under Kyiv’s control.
Moscow advanced by almost 4,000 square kilometers in Ukraine in 2024, according to an AFP analysis, as Kyiv’s army struggled with chronic manpower shortages and exhaustion.
