Ukraine's first ATACMS strike on Russian soil
Fiery explosions followed the missile's debut
After 1000 days of war, Ukraine was for the first time allowed to strike Russia with ATACMS.
As a missile alert was declared in the region on the early morning of November 19th, a large explosion shook the small town of Karaček in the Bryansk region of Russia. Massive secondary explosions followed and lasted for several hours. The ammunition depot that supplied the Russian army with 152mm and 122mm howitzer shells, and 125mm 3-BK-18M HEAT tank shells was left heavily damaged.
Let us take a look at the timeline of the events which have led up to the destruction of this base.
The strike comes only two days after U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS to strike Russian soil. The reasons why Ukraine was finally allowed to strike deep inside Russia are many, but the main reasons are threefold. First, the deployment of North Korean troops to the frontline in the Kursk region can be seen as a major escalation from the Russian side. Second, a day before the decision, Russia launched a major missile attack ahead of winter that successfully targeted Ukraine’s energy facilities and damaged a hydroelectric dam near Kremenchuk, whose destruction would cause the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. Lastly, Ukraine has been losing ground amid their manpower shortages. Deep strikes on ammunition depots, army bases, and airfields could alleviate some of the pressure on the front line.
After the information regarding the use of ATACMS inside Russia was published, some officials quickly backtracked and claimed that the strikes are to be contained only in the Kursk region. These claims were presumably published to try and muddy the waters in the information sphere, as many were unhappy that Ukrainian plans were once again leaked to the public and hence to Russia as well.
The first news of missile alerts and strikes came from Russian Telegram channels in the early morning of November 19th. At the time it was not necessarily confirmed that the attack was performed using ATACMS (nor is there hard proof of it at the time of writing). Ukraine has already attacked this ammunition depot in early October with drones, achieving a similar effect. Even though Ukraine had not used drones this time, domestically made Neptune missiles or Tochkas are still in the Ukrainian inventory and capable of this strike.
The impact of the missile formed a large mushroom cloud in the area of the ammunition depot, with many secondary detonations following suit.
In the morning, the General Staff of Armed forces of Ukraine confirmed the attack at ammunition depot in Karachev in the Bryansk region. After a few hours a video of a launch of 2 ATACMS missiles was published, heavily implying they were used in the attack.
The Russian Ministry of Defense then claimed that Ukraine had launched 6 ATACMS missiles at the “military object in the Bryansk region”, with all 6 missiles being shot down. The debris of the last missile then dropped on the “technical part of the military object”, causing a fire which was quickly extinguished. I will leave the readers to decide for themselves if this information is credible or not…
In the afternoon, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had this to say to a question regarding the today's strike.
“Ukraine has long-range capabilities, we have our long-range drones, we have the long-range Neptune and more. And now we have ATACMS and we will use all of it.”
Lastly, as I was writing this article, new information from Reuters was published, citing that 8 ATACMS missiles were launched with only 2 being shot down. This information comes from an anonymous U.S. official, so I advise the reader to have healthy skepticism towards these claims.
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