Ukrainian forces claimed Monday that they had successfully hit a Russian S-300 missile system using Western-supplied weapons inside Russian territory.
“It burns beautifully. It’s a Russian S-300. On Russian territory. The first days after permission to use Western weapons on enemy territory,” Ukrainian government minister Iryna Vereshchuk posted on Facebook alongside a picture purporting to show the strike.
This comes just days after US President Joe Biden gave Ukraine permission to carry out limited strikes using US weapons in Russian territory around Kharkiv, after several European nations had removed restrictions on how the weapons can be used.
It is unclear if the weapons used in the strike described by Vereshchuk were US-supplied.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has praised Biden’s decision to allow some strikes in Russian territory as a “step forward” that will help his forces defend the embattled Kharkiv region, though some analysts have questioned whether the new freedoms will significantly bolster Ukraine’s ability to repel Russia’s invasion.
Military analysts have tempered expectations, partly because the US is standing firm in not allowing Ukraine to use the most formidable munition it has been given to fire into Russia: the long-range missiles known as ATACMS that can hit targets 300 kilometers (nearly 200 miles) away.
Instead, Ukraine can only use shorter-range missiles known as GMLRS, which have a range of around 70 kilometers (around 40 miles).
While the removal of this taboo appears to mark a new chapter in the war, Russia has already experienced Ukrainian strikes with Western weapons on territory to which it lays claim.
Ukraine has frequently targeted occupied Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, using “Storm Shadow” missiles provided by the UK.
Ukraine also launched strikes on Kharkiv and Kherson in late 2022, as it sought to liberate the regions occupied by Russia in the early weeks of the war.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
