The United States will soon provide antipersonnel mines to Ukraine, a U.S. official confirmed late Tuesday, in a move that followed Ukraine’s first deployment of long-range U.S.-supplied ballistic missiles in an attack on Russia.
The official said the United States sought commitments from Ukraine on how it will use the mines, with the expectation they will be deployed only on Ukrainian territory in areas where Ukrainian civilians are not living.
The official also pointed to the function of the mines, which they said require a battery for operation and will not detonate once the battery runs out after a period of a few hours to a few weeks.
Ukrainian forces hit ammunition warehouses in Russia’s Bryansk region before dawn Tuesday using the long-range missiles that Ukrainian officials long sought to hit areas Russia has used to deploy daily waves of rocket and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities.
The two sides disputed the effectiveness of the attack, which came two days after it was reported that President Joe Biden had reversed U.S. policy and approved use of the longer-range missiles as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reached the 1,000-day mark.
Two U.S. officials confirmed to VOA on Tuesday that the policy prohibiting Ukrainians' use of U.S.-provided, long-range weapons to hit military targets deep inside Russia "has changed."
The Russian defense ministry said in a statement, “Ukraine’s armed forces last night struck a facility in the Bryansk region” with six U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System rockets, or ATACMS, but that its forces shot down five of them and damaged the sixth. It said falling fragments from the exploding rockets caused a fire at the military facility, but there were no casualties.
Ukraine’s military general staff said in a post on Facebook that its forces had “caused fire damage” to “warehouses with ammunition for the army of the Russian occupiers” in Bryansk, about 100 kilometers from Ukraine’s border.
The attack caused “12 secondary explosions and detonations in the area of the target,” the statement said, while not specifying that ATACMS had been used. But a Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations, confirmed the use of the American weapons system.
The initial target using the long-range missile system was far short of the 300-kilometer range of the missile system. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had long sought U.S. approval of its use to launch attacks on military sites deep inside Russia. Until Sunday, though, Biden had resisted for fear of escalating tensions in the nearly three-year conflict between Moscow and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, four of whose member countries border Russia.
Biden reportedly reversed his position after North Korea sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to fight alongside Moscow’s forces in Russia’s Kursk region that Ukraine captured in August and still holds.
Biden leaves office in two months, and it is not clear what stance President-elect Donald Trump might adopt. Trump has been a skeptic of continued U.S. military support for Ukraine, claiming he would end the war before he even takes office; however, Trump has not offered any public plan on how he would do so.
With Ukraine now having the ability to fire the long-range missiles into Russia, President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a revised nuclear doctrine stating that a conventional attack on Russia by any nation supported by a nuclear power is considered a joint attack and could trigger a nuclear response.
When Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked if the revised doctrine was issued in response to the U.S. missile authorization, he said it was put forth “in a timely manner” and that Putin wanted it updated to be “in line with the current situation.”
In response, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said the United States was not surprised by Russia’s announcement that it is updating its nuclear doctrine since it had been signaling its intent to do so for several weeks. The spokesperson said the U.S. sees no need to change its posture.
“This is more of the same irresponsible rhetoric from Russia, which we have seen for the past two years,” the spokesperson said.
The Russian doctrine states nuclear weapons could be used in the case of a massive air attack involving ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft, drones and other flying vehicles.
It says an attack against Russia by a nonnuclear power with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen as their “joint attack on the Russian Federation,” a definition that would fit the Ukraine-U.S. alliance.
It doesn’t specify whether such an attack would definitely be met with a nuclear response.
Peskov said the aim of the updated policy was to make potential enemies understand the inevitability of retaliation for an attack on Russia or its allies.
It also states that Russia could use nuclear weapons if another country attacks Belarus, a Moscow ally.
Tear gas detected near front line
Also on Tuesday, Ukraine urged action after the international chemical weapons watchdog said banned CS riot control gas, also known as tear gas, had been found in Ukrainian soil samples from the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Russia has not reacted to the report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which did not assign blame for the chemical.
The Chemical Weapons Convention strictly bans the use of riot control agents including CS outside riot control situations when it is used as "a method of warfare,” Agence France-Presse reported.
CS gas causes irritation to the lungs, skin and eyes.
Both sides have accused each other of using chemical weapons in the conflict, and Ukraine’s Western allies have claimed Moscow has employed banned weapons.
“Russia's use of banned chemicals on the battlefield once again demonstrates Russia's chronic disregard for international law," a statement from Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.
The OPCW stressed however, that the report did "not seek to identify the source or origin of the toxic chemical."
Carla Babb, Jeff Seldin and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.