Kremlin admits Ukraine hit targets in Russia with US-made ATACMS

KYIV — Ukraine’s armed forces hit a military and civilian airfield in Russia’s Kursk region Monday with multiple long-range ATACMS, the Russian defense ministry admitted Tuesday.
“Seven missiles were shot down. One hit the target,” the ministry said, according to Russia’s state-owned Ria Novosti news outlet. “The defense ministry is preparing a strike in response to the attacks.”
Civil aviation operations at the airfield, known as Kursk-Vostochnyi, ceased in Feb. 2022, the month Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Kursk region borders Ukraine, and was invaded by Kyiv in August in an operation involving an estimated 10,000 troops, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Ukraine currently controls some 650 square kilometers in the region.
In addition to the airfield strike, the Kremlin also confirmed that Ukraine on Saturday had used five ATACMS missiles to hit S-400 missile positions in Lotarevka, a village in Kursk region. “Three missiles were destroyed, while two hit the target,” the Russian defense ministry told Ria Novosti on Tuesday.
Kyiv has officially confirmed only the S-400 attacks and has not identified the missiles it used.
“[The] Ukrainian Army carried out a group strike on the positions of the anti-aircraft missile division 1490 … of the Russian Federation in Kursk region. A successful hit was recorded on the radar station of the S-400 anti-aircraft missile system,” Kyiv’s General Staff said in a statement Monday.
“[The] S-400 unit conducted combat operations in the “ground-to-ground” mode, i.e. hitting stationary ground targets, mostly civilian objects and peaceful residents of settlements in the front-line regions of Ukraine,” the statement added.
The General Staff did not respond to requests to comment on the Kursk-Vostochnyi airfield strike. However, Ukrainian open-source intelligence community CyberBoroshno, which monitors Ukraine’s strikes in Russia, confirmed that at least two ATACMS cluster missiles had hit the airfield.
Ukraine rarely reveals what types of missiles or drones it uses to hit targets in Russia. The White House, however, has confirmed that the Ukrainians have been using ATACMS.
“Right now, they are able to use ATACMS to defend themselves, you know, in an immediate-need basis … understandably, that’s taking place in and around Kursk,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said at a briefing Monday.
 “Obviously, we did change the guidance and gave them guidance that they could use them … to strike these particular types of targets,” Kirby said, but provided no further details.