Ukraine said on Tuesday that it targeted Russian territory with US-made ATACMS, in its first public announcement of such a strike since the second Trump administration began.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces did not provide further details of the attack, only saying that the long-range missiles were used in a “precision strike.”
“The use of long-range strike capabilities, including systems such as ATACMS, will continue,” its Tuesday statement said.
Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, are powerful ground-launched missiles with a maximum range of about 190 miles.
They are typically fired through the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System or M240 Multiple Launch Rocket System launchers, both of which Ukraine possesses.
Several Russian Telegram channels have published footage of air defense systems being activated over the Voronezh region, but Business Insider could not independently verify the target area of the strikes.
The General Staff’s announcement comes after months of reported delays in US approval for ATACMS strikes into Russia. Because Ukraine’s launchers and missiles are American-made, the US requires that Kyiv coordinate its targets with the Pentagon.
In November 2024, then-President Joe Biden initially lifted previous restrictions on Ukraine’s US-provided launchers, allowing it to attack Russian soil directly. Kyiv followed through with strikes on the Bryansk region.
It was a move that Washington had hesitated to make for years, out of fear that such involvement would push Moscow toward escalatory action or even a nuclear attack.
Since the initial strike last year, Ukraine has remained quiet over any use of ATACMS as President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. It’s unclear if the Pentagon continued to allow such strikes on Russia under the new administration.
Those months were marked by an intense negotiation effort by Trump to reach a ceasefire deal with Russia.
In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon had been vetoing Ukraine’s ATACMS strikes on Russia for months.
Ukraine’s announcement on Tuesday suggests a shift in the Pentagon’s policy, although the circumstances behind the US’s new stance remain unclear.
The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
As use of Western-made munitions stalled, Ukraine has tried to fill the gap by deploying its own homegrown long-range missiles, such as the Flamingo, to hit targets such as arms factories and oil facilities deeper inside Russia.
Kyiv has also been attacking Russia with its own, large, slow-moving winged drones, which are often equipped to fly into their targets with an explosive payload.
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