Ukraine has fired UK-made Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, multiple sources have told the Guardian.
The decision to approve the strikes was made in response to the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine in what UK and US officials have warned was a major escalation of the nearly three-year-old conflict.
The Guardian earlier this week reported that the UK would soon approve Storm Shadow missiles for use inside Russia after the US president, Joe Biden, agreed to do the same for the similar American Atacms weapons.
It was not immediately clear what Ukraine used the Storm Shadow missiles to target. Unconfirmed images distributed via the Telegram messaging app appeared to show fragments of the missile at a location in the Kursk region. One weapons expert, Trevor Ball, formerly of the US army, said the images circulating did show Storm Shadow fragments though he could not verify if they were current or old pictures.
The strike came a day after Ukraine used US-supplied missiles to strike targets in the Bryansk region. Western officials have indicated that they are specifically targeting the North Korean buildup in the region as well as infrastructure that may be used for a 50,000-strong offensive against a Ukrainian incursion into the region.
Vladimir Putin has warned that the use of US- and UK-made missiles inside Russia’s borders would be tantamount to Nato entering into a direct conflict with Moscow. Western officials have warned that Russia could escalate strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine or use other hybrid warfare tactics against targets in Europe and other US allies around the world.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow would respond “appropriately” a day after Ukraine fired six of the newly approved US-made Atacms missiles into an ammunition warehouse in the south-western Bryansk region.
Hours earlier, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, signed a revised nuclear doctrine lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons amid warnings from Russian MPs that the US action was bringing “world war three” closer.
Overnight, the Pentagon said it had seen no sign that Russia was planning to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, and accused Russian politicians of engaging in irresponsible rhetoric.
“We’re going to continue to monitor, but we don’t have any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon within Ukraine,” said Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh.