Kyiv hits Russia with US-supplied long-range missiles for first time

Moscow says strike marks 'new phase of the Western war,' vows to react accordingly

Russia said on Nov 19 that Ukraine had fired US-supplied long-range missiles into its territory for the first time since Washington authorized such strikes as President Vladimir Putin issued a nuclear threat on the 1,000th day of the war.

A senior Ukrainian official confirmed to AFP that its military had used Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to strike inside Russian territory.

"The attack on the Bryansk region was carried out by ATACMS missiles," the source told AFP, without adding details. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky separately declined to comment during a press conference in Kyiv.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at a Group of 20 press conference in Brazil, said the strike marked a "new phase of the Western war" against Moscow, and vowed to react "accordingly".

The grim 1,000th-day anniversary opened with a Russian strike in the eastern Ukrainian region of Sumy that gutted a Soviet-era residential building and killed at least 12 people, including a child.

Mr. Zelensky published images of rescuers hauling bodies from the debris and called on Kyiv's allies to "force" the Kremlin into peace.

The Foreign Ministry released an anniversary statement calling on allies to ramp up military support to bring about a "sustainable" end to the war.

"Ukraine will never submit to the occupiers, and the Russian military will be punished for violating international law," the ministry said.