Debris of a US-supplied ATACMS missile at Kursk Vostochny Airport, 25 November 2024. Photo: Russian Defence Ministry
Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Wednesday that two people were killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on the village of Bolshoye Zhirovo in the country’s southwestern Kursk region on Saturday in what it described as “an act of terrorism”.
According to Russia’s Defence Ministry, another Ukrainian strike on Saturday using US-supplied ATACMS missiles damaged a Russian S-400 air defence system and left several soldiers injured near the Kursk region village of Lotarevka, around 19 kilometres from Bolshoye Zhirovo.
The ministry also pledged it would respond to Ukraine’s use of eight ATACMS tactical missiles to target Kursk Vostochny Airport on Monday, adding Russian air defence had successfully intercepted seven of them, while one “reached its target”, injuring two servicemen and damaging infrastructure at the airport, which hosts a military base, just outside the regional capital Kursk.
The two statements issued by Russia’s Defence Ministry and Investigative Committee are rare acknowledgements that Ukrainian strikes of any kind had successfully hit their targets.
Earlier this month the Ukrainian military struck a military facility near the city of Karachev in Russia’s western Bryansk region with ATACMS missiles, the first time the US-supplied missiles were used by Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia’s borders.
