Ukraine Didn't Wait Long to Fire US-Made Missiles at Russia

Ukraine fired six US-made missiles at Russia's Bryansk region, Russia's Defense Ministry said Tuesday, days after US President Biden eased restrictions on Ukrainian use of American-made weapons in the war that has reached its 1,000-day milestone, per the AP. 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. 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 falling debris sparked a fire at an unspecified military facility, but didn't inflict any damage or casualties, the ministry said.

Neither side's claims could be independently verified. The announcement came after Biden authorized Ukraine to use US-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, including two children, authorities said, adding that more people could be trapped under the rubble.

Ukrainian civilians have repeatedly been hit by Russian drones and missiles during the war, while on the battlefield its army is stretched extremely thin at places on the 600-mile front line against a bigger adversary. On Sunday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and wounding 84 others. On Monday, a Russian missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and wounding 43. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the series of aerial strikes proved that Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn't interested in ending the war. "We must force Russia to a just peace by force," he added. (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)