MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukraine launched an attack on Russia’s Belgorod region with six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles on Thursday, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday.
It said that Russia would retaliate, but that all the missiles had been intercepted, resulting in no casualties or damage.
Moscow has said it will respond every time Ukraine fires ATACMS or British-supplies Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia.
Ukraine first used those weapons to strike at Russian territory in November after obtaining permission from Washington and London. Russia replied by firing a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile, the Oreshnik, and has said it may do so again.
The defence ministry said that over the past week, Russia shot down 12 ATACMS, eight Storm Shadows, 48 U.S. HIMARS rockets, seven French-made Hammer guided bombs and 747 drones. Reuters could not verify those figures.
It reported for the first time that Russian forces had captured the village of Slovianka in eastern Ukraine, one of eight Ukrainian settlements it said had been taken in the past week.
The statement said Russia had carried out eight major strikes in the past week on parts of Ukraine’s gas and energy infrastructure that it said were supporting military facilities and the Ukrainian defence industry.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile attack killed at least four people and partially destroyed an educational facility in the city of Kryvyi Rih in southern-central Ukraine on Friday. At least seven others were hurt, some of them seriously, Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov, Writing by Mark Trevelyan, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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