MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s military on Tuesday said it would retaliate against Ukraine after Kyiv attacked Russian regions by firing six U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles, six UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles and launching one of the biggest drone attacks to date.
After Ukraine first launched ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles into Russia last year, Moscow responded on Nov. 21 by launching a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik”, or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down all of the Western missiles fired by Ukraine at the Bryansk region, as well as 146 drones outside the war zone. It said two more Storm Shadows had been shot down over the Black Sea.
“The actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by its Western curators, will not go unanswered,” the defence ministry said.
The Ukrainian General Staff said it had struck as deep as 1,100 km (680 miles) inside Russia, targeting oil storage, refinery, chemical and ammunition plants in the Bryansk, Saratov, Tula and Tatarstan regions.
Kyiv did not say exactly how it struck the targets, but said that drone and missile forces were among the units involved in the attack.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in November that the Ukraine war was escalating towards a global conflict after the United States and Britain allowed Ukraine for the first time to launch their missiles deep inside Russia.
President-elect Donald Trump has pushed for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war quickly, leaving Washington’s long-term support for Ukraine in question.
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands of dead, displaced millions and triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
DRONE ATTACK
The drone attack on Russia was one of the biggest to date.
Roman Busargin, governor of the Saratov region about 720 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, said the cities of Saratov and Engels, on opposite banks of the Volga River, had been subjected to a mass drone attack and there was damage to two industrial sites. Schools had shifted to remote learning, he said.
Ukraine attacked the same region last week and claimed to have struck an oil depot serving an airbase for Russian nuclear bomber planes, causing a huge fire that took five days to put out.
The Ukrainian General Staff said it had hit the Kristall Plant oil storage facility in Engels, part of an operation run by Ukrainian drone units and military intelligence.
The General Staff also said it had struck the Bryansk Chemical Plant, which it said produced ammunition for artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, aviation, engineering ammunition and components for cruise missiles.
The drone attack struck a munitions storage facility holding guided bombs and missiles at the Engels airbase in Russia’s Saratov region as well as other targets, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine said on Tuesday.
The General Staff said attacks on the Saratov Oil Refinery and the Kazanorgsintez plant triggered fires.
(Reporting by Reuters; writing by Guy Faulconbridge; additional reporting by Kyiv bureau; editing by Ed Osmond; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Sharon Singleton)
