Published: 18:24 GMT, 19 November 2024 | Updated: 20:52 GMT, 19 November 2024
Ukraine fires first US-made missile into Russia: WW3 fears as Kremlin threatens ‘nuclear response’
Putin lowers threshold for nuke launch as Ukraine fires US-made ATACMS into Russia for first time
Russia has begun mass-producing mobile bomb shelters that can protect against shockwaves and radiation from a nuclear blast.
The new ‘KUB-M’ shelters will offer protection for 54 people for up to two days against natural and man-made hazards, Moscow’s emergency ministry has said.
It comes as Vladimir Putin this morning signed off a document to lower Russia’s threshold for launching nuclear weapons.
The new doctrine, which replaces the previous iteration outlined in 2020, allows Moscow to deploy its weapons if Russia or Belarus is threatened by a non-nuclear nation supported by a nuclear power.
The ‘KUB-M’ mobile bomb shelters look like reinforced shipping containers and consist of two modules – a room for 54 people and a technical block.
‘The mobile shelter is a multifunctional structure that provides protection for people from various threats, including natural disasters and man-made accidents,’ the research institute said, calling it ‘an important step towards improving the safety of citizens’.
They can easily be transported on a truck and connected to water supplies, and can also be deployed in Russia’s vast northern permafrost, it added.
The move has not been linked to any current crisis, although the announcement came just days after President Joe Biden agreed to allow Ukraine to fire US long-range missiles deep into Russia.
Emergency personnel walk into radiation-resistant mobile bomb shelters in Nizhny Novgorod region in February last year (file photo)
Vladimir Putin this morning signed off on an updated version of the Kremlin’s nuclear doctrine that broadens the scope for Moscow to turn to its fearsome atomic arsenal
ATACMS – Army Tactical Missile – being fired from an M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System
Zelensky called on Kyiv’s allies to ‘force’ the Kremlin into a ‘just peace’ and vowed his forces would ‘never surrender’ to Russia in a speech to Parliament this morning
The Kremlin has branded this decision as reckless and warned that it would draw a response from Moscow.
This morning US-made missiles rained down on Russian soil striking an ammunition depot in Russia’s Bryansk region.
‘This is, of course, a signal that they want to escalate,’ Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at a G20 press conference in Brazil, said of the strike.
‘We will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia. And we will react accordingly,’ he added, accusing Washington of helping Kyiv operate the missiles.
Lavrov also urged the West to read the decree signed by Putin, saying in a stark warning: ‘I hope that they will read this doctrine… in its entirety.’
But Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed claims that the provision of ATACMS has brought hundreds of prized Russian military and logistics assets within range of Kyiv’s crosshairs.
The ATACMS strike in Bryansk triggered a fiery explosion at an ammunition depot in Karachev around 75 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Eyewitnesses along with Russian and Ukrainian military bloggers first reported the attack, with anonymous Ukrainian military officials later telling RBC Ukraine the strike was conducted with the US-manufactured ATACMS. https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/20350458/embed
A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is launched as part of nuclear deterrence forces drills from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, in Arkhangelsk Oblast, northwestern Russia, 29 October 2024
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Kyiv is yet to officially confirm the ATACMS strike, but Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed they shot down five missiles. A sixth missile was damaged but ultimately landed on the military facility, it said.
In anticipation of Ukraine receiving permission to use ATACMS, Russia’s air force is said to have redeployed many of its fighter jets and strategic bomber aircraft away from the airbases in range of the missiles to sites further east.
But there are still more than 200 military facilities that could be battered by the US-manufactured munitions from positions along the 800-mile-long frontline.
Among the first likely targets for Ukrainian strikes could be the Kuzminka Military Base, a critical staging area for Putin’s forces between the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and the Ukrainian border which acts as a hub for vehicle storage, troop assembly and operational planning.
Russia’s 381st artillery regiment is also located close to the Kuzminka base along with several logistics centres.
Meanwhile, in Kursk, Kyiv’s troops could seek to target the headquarters of Russia’s 448th Missile Brigade or regional assembly points used to gather troops preparing to push back the Ukrainian incursion in the region.
Targeting these sites could cripple Russian logistics, command, and combat support, significantly reducing Moscow’s offensive capabilities in occupied Ukrainian territory and harming efforts to retake territory in Kursk.
However, the overall supply of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine is short, so US officials and analysts have questioned whether allowing Ukraine to use the weapons systems is really worth it given the potential consequences that could ensue.
Asked on Tuesday if a Ukrainian attack with longer-range US missiles could potentially trigger a nuclear response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov answered affirmatively.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, centre, walks with Vadym Fiashkin, head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, right, during a tour of frontline positions, November 18, 2024, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast
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Russian army’s multiple rocket launcher Solntsepyok fires towards Ukrainian positions in the border area of Kursk region
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He pointed to the provision in Russia’s new doctrine that allows Moscow to turn to nuclear weapons following a conventional strike that raises critical threats for the ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its ally, Belarus’.
Putin, who today signed the decree formalising Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine, first announced changes to the document in September.
At the time, the Russian president said he would consider Western nations ‘direct participants’ in the war in Ukraine if they were to provide Kyiv with the ability to strike targets inside Russia.
He also suggested he may provide Russian missiles to Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad as a course of retaliation.
Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank, was critical of the Biden administration’s decision to approve the use of ATACMS on targets in Russia.
‘Expanding Ukraine’s ability to launch offensive strikes with Western weapons inside Russia will not alter the trajectory of the war or help Kyiv gain an advantage against a better equipped and more resilient adversary.
‘Any escalation could reverberate on Ukraine itself. With the Biden administration on its way out and the incoming Trump administration indicating an intention to end the war, Putin has little incentive to act with restraint in his retaliation toward Kyiv.’
But proponents of the policy say that even a few strikes deeper inside Russia would force its military to change deployments and expend more of its resources.
George Barros, leader of the Russia team and GEOINT team at ISW that compiled the list of targets, sought to highlight the way in which ATACMS could impact Putin’s troops and campaigned for the Biden administration to allow strikes beyond Kursk as a result.
‘Reminder that there are hundreds of valid, legal, legitimate, and operationally consequential military targets in range of Ukrainian ATACMS,’ he wrote.
‘The Biden Administration’s shift to allow ATACMS use in Russia is a good thing.’
Matthew Savill, the director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, said of Ukraine’s ATACMS attacks: ‘Many of the best targets – helicopters and glide-bomb armed aircraft attacking Ukrainian cities and troops in the north or in Kursk have largely moved to airbases outside the range of ATACMS.
‘This still leaves plenty of opportunities to strike military headquarters and ammunition or supply locations supporting Russian and North Korean troops, but this would be a reduced impact from when the Ukrainians first requested these weapons.’
It remains to be seen whether Britain and France will follow America’s lead by allowing Kyiv’s troops to attack Russian targets with Storm Shadow and SCALP long-range missiles – though it is expected the restrictions will soon be relaxed.
What is the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS)?
The US-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) uses solid propellant to fire explosive projectiles at ranges of up to 300km/190 miles (roughly the same distance from London to the outer suburbs of Paris).
There are four variants of the ATACMS, two of which – the M39 Block I and the M39A1 Block I – contain 950 and 300 M74 bomblets respectively.
Each of these bomblets is roughly the size of a baseball, and in the case of the M39, 950 are dispersed over an area of 677 feet in diameter – covering 360,000 square feet – making them highly effective at destroying groups of parked aircraft, ammunition dumps, aid defence systems – as well as gatherings of troops.