MOSCOW/BELGOROD (dpa-AFX) – The Russian military says it has repelled a Ukrainian attack with long-range US missiles on the border region of Belgorod and is threatening a counterattack. All ATACMS missiles were shot down by air defense, the Defense Ministry said on its Telegram channel. Moscow will respond accordingly to this attack. The ministry’s information could not initially be independently verified.
The ATACMS missiles are considered long-range weapons. In the past, Russia had threatened to respond to such attacks against its own territory by firing hypersonic missiles at targets in Ukraine. In November, Russia fired such a medium-range missile called Oreshnik at the Ukrainian industrial city of Dnipro. Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin said that the missile, which could potentially be equipped with nuclear weapons, could not be intercepted by Western air defense systems.
While the ATACMS missiles were all supposedly repelled, a high-rise building in the capital of the same name in the neighboring Russian region of Voronezh had to be evacuated because a drone hit. Around 100 residents were brought to safety and a state of emergency was declared in part of the city in order to repair the damage as quickly as possible, said the mayor of Voronezh, Sergei Petrin./bal/DP/he