By Ukraine fired U.S.-made missiles into Russia for the first time
Ukraine’s military used American-made ballistic weapons known as ATACMS yesterday to strike into Russia for the first time and hit an ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of southwestern Russia, officials said.
The attack came on the same day President Vladimir Putin lowered Russia’s threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. The timing of the long-planned move was clearly meant to send a message, just days after President Biden authorized the use of the long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia.
The decree shows how Putin is trying to use the threat of his nuclear arsenal to deter the U.S. from further supporting Ukraine. The White House played down Putin’s new doctrine and said it had observed “no changes to Russia’s nuclear posture.”
Analysis: It’s telling that the reaction in Washington to yesterday’s attacks was just short of a yawn, my colleague David Sanger wrote. Over nearly three years, the war in Ukraine has inured Washington and the world to the renewed use of nuclear weapons as the ultimate bargaining chip.
Related: Germany’s defense minister called the severing of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea an act of sabotage. Concerns have been rising in Europe that Russia may wage a hybrid war against it in retaliation for helping Ukraine.
