Days After Biden Policy Change, Russia Claims to Shoot Down US-Made

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Mere days ago, in a significant policy shift weeks ahead of his retirement, Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles for strikes inside Russia. Now, the Associated Press reports that Russia’s Defense Ministry is claiming Ukraine launched six U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region on Tuesday.

Ukraine claimed it hit a military weapons depot in Bryansk in the middle of the night, though it didn’t specify what weapons it used. The Ukrainian General Staff said that multiple explosions and detonation were heard in the targeted area.

In a statement carried by Russian news agencies, the Russian Defense Ministry said the military shot down five Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, and damaged one more.

The fragments fell on the territory of an unspecified military facility, the ministry said. The falling debris sparked a fire, but didn’t inflict any damage or casualties, it said.

Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.

The announcement came after Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer range weapons after Russia deployed thousands of North Korean troops in the conflict.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported a third Russian strike in three days on a civilian residential area in Ukraine killed at least 12 people, including a child.

The strike by a Shahed drone in the northern Sumy region late Monday hit a dormitory of an educational facility in the town of Hlukhiv and wounded 11 others, including two children, authorities said, adding that more people could be trapped under the rubble.

Biden had long opposed measures that might escalate the conflict, but this abrupt policy shift, coming so close to his exit from the White House, raises questions about its timing and intent. Could it have been an attempt to complicate Trump’s proposed plans to negotiate an end to the war? While the claims cannot be verified, it is notable that Putin had warned the United States supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles would signify that “all NATO countries are officially at war with Russia.”

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The Kremlin has now “updated its nuclear weapons doctrine to allow for nuclear strikes in response to foreign ballistic missile attacks,” according to a report from ABC News.

Ukrainian forces fired six “ballistic missiles,” the ministry wrote on its official Telegram page, five of which were downed and the sixth damaged. “According to confirmed data, American-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles were used,” it wrote.

“ATACMS fragments fell on the technical territory of a military facility in the Bryansk region, a fire broke out, it was extinguished,” the ministry added.

The ministry alleged the attack shortly after Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists that the changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine — signed by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday — meant “the use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia can prompt a nuclear response.”

The report also notes that “The changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine were unveiled several weeks ago but only signed by Putin on Tuesday, as officials in Moscow expressed anger at the U.S. decision to allow ATACMS use on Russian territory.”

Has Joe Biden set the stage not only for World War III but for a nuclear war?