Ukraine hit Russia with U.S.-produced ATACMS missiles twice over the last three days and Russia is preparing retaliatory measures, Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday.
It said both strikes targeted Russian forces’ positions in the Kursk region. The first one took place on November 23, and two out of five missiles launched at a Russian S-400 air defence system hit the target, damaging its radar system.
In the second attack, on November 25, eight missiles were aimed at the Kursk-Vostochny airport, which also hosts a military airbase. One missile reached the target, wounding two soldiers, the ministry said in a statement.
“The ministry… is in control of the situation, and retaliatory measures are being prepared,” it said.
Two Ukrainian missiles and 27 drones were destroyed over Russia’s Kursk region, the governor of the embattled Kursk region that borders Ukraine said on Sunday. Ukrainian troops stormed across Russia’s western border into Kursk on August 6 and seized a chunk of territory.
It was not immediately clear what missiles were destroyed. Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov did not provide further details in a post on social media.
The Ukrainian military claims that it had destroyed a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system in Kursk.
Moscow launched waves of counter-assaults and has retaken at least 40% of the captured territory, in Kursk, since then, but Kyiv still controls about 800 square kilometres of the region, a senior Ukrainian military source said on Sunday.
Russians have been able to achieve the results without having committed North Korean troops to battle. Most of the North Korean troops sent to the Kursk region in support of Russia remain in training as of now.
Simultaneously, Russian forces make threatening advances towards Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Ukraine seeks to disrupt Russian supply lines with strikes deep inside Russia enabled by easing of curbs on the use of Western-supplied missiles.
The source, who is on Ukraine’s General Staff, said Russia had deployed some 59,000 troops to the Kursk region since Kyiv’s forces swept in and advanced swiftly, catching Moscow unprepared 2-1/2 years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
