Moscow/Kiev, 20 November 2024 (dpa/MIA) - Russia said on Tuesday that Ukraine fired six US-made ATACMS missiles at a target in Russia as the war reached its 1,000th day.

Five of the long-range missiles were shot down by Russian air defences and another one damaged, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said, in what would be the first such attack since the US allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS against targets inside Russian territory.

The strike hit the Bryansk region that is north of Ukraine, with debris falling on a military site in the border area.

Ukraine's general staff said earlier that the Ukrainian armed forces targeted a Russian ammunition depot in Bryansk overnight.

The Ukrainian military said on Facebook that 12 secondary explosions had been observed at the depot, located near the Russian city of Karachev.

"The object was successfully destroyed," the news outlet RBK-Ukraina quoted an army source as saying.

Outgoing President Joe Biden changed US policy to allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons to strike targets on Russian territory, according to US media reports over the weekend. The US government has not publicly confirmed the change, but officials have also not disputed the reports.

The expanded permission from the US reportedly came in response to the apparent deployment of North Korean soldiers on Moscow's side in the conflict.

Russia sees an 'escalation'

Russia views the US long-range weapons as an escalation and an entanglement of the United States and other Western countries in the war.

Until now, Ukraine has only been allowed to use HIMARS rocket artillery from the United States against targets just inside the Russian border to repel the offensive against the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Biden's move has been met with criticism in the camp of his successor, Donald Trump, who takes office in late January.

Putin signs revised nuclear doctrine

Meanwhile Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Tuesday a revised nuclear doctrine that lowers the threshold for the use of weapons.

The doctrine states that Moscow would consider nuclear retaliation not only in response to a nuclear attack, but also in the event of a conventional attack on Russia or its ally Belarus that "poses a critical threat to their sovereignty and/or territorial integrity."

Putin has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons during the war in Ukraine, and the revised doctrine is viewed as a direct threat to Ukraine and its allies.

Zelensky calls for 'just peace'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the 1,000th day with a call for allies to push Moscow towards "a just peace."

In a video address to the European Parliament to thank Ukraine's supporters, Zelensky said that Putin lacked the "real motivation" to engage in genuine peace negotiations.

He appealed for harsher sanctions on Russian ships transporting oil as well as more weapons to hit Russian military targets like ammunition depots to push Putin towards the negotiating table.

The Ukrainian president warned that Putin, in pursuit of victory, could increase the deployment of North Korean troops on Ukraine's borders from 11,000 to 100,000.

At least six killed in drone strike in Sumy region

At least six people were killed in a Russian drone strike in Ukraine's eastern Sumy region, local media reported.

A combat drone hit a multi-storey residential building in the town of Hlukhiv, according to reports.

At least 12 people were injured, the regional administration said.

The attack on Tuesday follows a deadly weekend in the region, where 12 people, including two children, were killed, and over 50 others injured when a Russian missile struck a residential building in Sumy.

The Sumy region has increasingly become a target of Russian strikes, including missile, drone and artillery attacks. The area serves as a supply route for Ukrainian forces.

Meanwhile, a significant drone attack by Ukraine caused damage in multiple Russian regions on Tuesday.

In the town of Alexeyevka, production halls on the premises of a company were damaged by falling drone debris, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Russian border region of Belgorod.

An infrastructure facility and a power line were also hit, he said in message on Telegram.

In the neighbouring region of Voronezh, Governor Alexander Gusev said that a fire broke out in an industrial plant following a drone attack.

Drone attacks were also reported from the Bryansk and Tula regions, although no details on the damage there have been disclosed so far.

Moscow says Ukrainian casualties exceed 900,000

The Russian Ministry of Defence and state-run news agency TASS said on Tuesday that Ukraine's armed forces had suffered more than 900,000 casualties, including both dead and wounded, since the war began in February 2022.

According to TASS calculations and the ministry, this year alone, Ukraine's losses have surpassed those from the first two years of the conflict combined, with total losses for Kiev put at 906,500 dead and wounded.

Casualty figures in such conflicts generally cannot be independently verified. Neither Moscow nor Kiev have so far disclosed exact numbers regarding their respective losses.

The New York Times recently reported, citing US military and intelligence sources, that 57,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action so far. This figure is said to be roughly half of the Russia's losses, but Ukraine is a much smaller country.

NATO has estimated Russian losses at over 600,000 dead and wounded, while Western intelligence sources report 200,000 dead and 400,000 wounded in Russian ranks.

The Ukrainian government has also published its own list, saying that over 722,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded since the start of the war in February 2022.

MIA file photo