For the first time, Ukraine used long-range missiles manufactured by the United States to attack Russian territory, this Tuesday (19), said the Russian government, amid an escalation of the conflict that reached its thousandth day.
It is unclear how many ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) Ukraine has at its disposal. A spokesman for Lockheed Martin, which makes the missiles, said last year that the company produces approximately 500 of them a year.
Ukraine and its allies have repeatedly argued that authorization to use these missiles to attack targets inside Russia will help Kiev better defend itself.
In September, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told CNN that “the victim of aggression has the right to defend himself also in the aggressor’s territory”.
He used the example of a Russian attack on the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, which wiped out an entire family, to demonstrate the importance of Ukraine being able to attack targets inside Russia rather than waiting for the threat to enter the skies. from Ukraine.
“The missile that killed that family was launched by a Russian bomber that was flying over Russian territory from a Russian airfield. Give me one reason why Ukraine shouldn’t be able to shoot down that bomber and destroy that airfield,” Sikorski said.
The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington DC, estimates that around 250 Russian military objects – including 17 air bases – are within range of Ukrainian ATACMS.
This content originally appeared on How many US long-range missiles does Ukraine have and how can it use them? on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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