Outgoing US President Joe Biden has authorized Kiev to use long-range weapons against Russia.
Russia has vowed to retaliate after it claimed to have shot down eight US-supplied ATACMS missiles launched by Ukraine in its border region of Belgorod.
“On January 3, an attempt was made from Ukrainian territory to launch a missile attack against the Belgorod region using operational-tactical US-made ATACMS missiles,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
“These actions by the Kiev regime, which is supported by Western curators, will be met with retaliation,” he added, saying all the missiles were shot down.
The ministry said earlier that air defenses shot down eight ATACMS missiles in total, without saying when or where.
Officials in Ukraine have not yet responded to the allegations.
The Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) has a range of 300 km (190 miles) and was first developed in the 1980s.
Outgoing US President Joe Biden had authorized Kiev to use long-range weapons against Russia last year, a move the Kremlin denounced as a serious escalation of the nearly three-year-old conflict. According to White House spokesman John Kirby, Biden is expected to announce additional security assistance for Ukraine in the coming days.
US President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview last month that he was “very strongly” opposed to Ukraine’s use of weapons, which he said were “escalating” the conflict.
In addition to military support from the US, Kiev will also reportedly receive its first French Mirage 2000-5F fighters this month, according to French magazine Avions Legendaires.
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened last year to hit central Kiev with a hypersonic ballistic missile if Ukraine continued to strike Russian territory with Western long-range weapons.
Both Kiev and Moscow have accused each other of fatal attacks on civilians since the beginning of the year.
A Russian attack on a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region earlier Saturday killed a 74-year-old man, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.
At least three people, including two children, were wounded in a Russian attack in northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy region on Saturday, local authorities said. Sumy borders Russia’s Kursk region and has been regularly shelled by Russian forces for months.
Russian forces also launched attacks near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in an attempt to bypass it from the south and cut off supply routes for Ukrainian troops, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that Russia had launched 300 attack drones and 20 missiles at Ukrainian targets in the first three days of 2025, but said a large number were shot down by Kiev forces.
“Such Russian terror, which continues with unabated intensity, requires us and all our partners not to reduce efforts in strengthening our air defense shield and all its systemic components – from Patriot systems to mobile groups of fire,” Zelenskyy said on his social media platforms. .
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will embark on his last trip in office this weekend, traveling to South Korea, Japan and France.
In meetings in Paris, he is expected to discuss European security and Russia’s war in Ukraine with French officials, marking the Biden administration’s final overreach to Kiev before the Trump administration takes over.
