The Russian Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday that it shot down six ATACMS missiles, long-range weapons recently supplied to Ukraine by the United States, and the governor of the annexed Crimea announced that submunitions had fallen on this territory, AFP and Reuters report, quoted by Agerpres.
Last week, Washington announced that it had sent these missiles to Ukraine, which had been asking for them for a long time in order to strike further behind the front lines.
Russian air defense destroyed six ATACMS missiles “in the last 24 hours”, the Defense Ministry said in a statement, without indicating where the interceptions took place.
The governor of Crimea, Serghei Aksionov, nevertheless warned the inhabitants of this territory regarding the presence of “unexploded submunitions” dispersed after the destruction of the “ATACMS missiles”.
The person in charge mentioned the city of Simferopol in this regard. He also posted on Telegram a photo of a spherical object on the ground that would be, according to him, one of these “submunitions”.
Russia has not announced whether these missiles or the fall of their remains caused damage, and Ukraine has not commented on the information.
Last week, the US State Department announced that the US had sent ATACMS missiles to Ukraine in February, “at the direct request of President” Joe Biden.
Ukraine used American ATACMS missiles against Russia for the first time in October, but the ones sent recently have a longer range, up to 300 km away.
Ukraine requested these missiles to hit Russian supply routes, warehouses or Russian military headquarters located further from the front line. Last week, the Kremlin assured that this new delivery would not change anything in the conflict.
