Moscow has announced a very serious escalation out of Ukraine on Wednesday, with defense ministry officials saying that six US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles were launched against a Russian airfield inside the country's sovereign territory.
Taganrog is a Black Sea port city in southwestern Russia, and was targeted in the heavy attack. The military claimed that all six were able to be intercepted and downed before reaching their target, with two reported intercepts by a Pantsir air defense system, and the others destroyed after electronic warfare systems diverted them.
"Missile fragments caused injuries among personnel. There was no destruction, but two buildings in the airfield's technical area and three military vehicles sustained minor shrapnel damage. Civilian vehicles in a nearby parking lot were also damaged," the Russian Defense Ministry statement said.
Apparently this damage occurred through "falling fragments of the missiles" according to the ministry, which also vowed that retaliation is coming for the strike.
"This attack by Western long-range weapons will not go unanswered, and appropriate measures will be taken," it added, but without specifying anything further.
It appears that at least other drones or missiles which were part of the broader assault made it through Russian aerial defenses:
In the early hours of Wednesday, Dec.11, multiple explosions shook the city of Taganrog in Russia’s Rostov region, regional governor Yuri Slyusar reported, describing the attack as a "missile strike."
The attack, reported around 4:20 a.m., triggered air defense systems and caused at least ten explosions, local residents told the Shot Telegram channel. Eyewitnesses suggested the target might have been a military airfield, according to CHEKA-OGPU Telegram channel.
It was only in September that President Vladimir Putin declared new 'red lines' for the conflict, asserting that any long-range attack on Russia with West-supplied missiles would be viewed as the as the "direct participation" of NATO countries in the war in Ukraine.
"It would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict," he said at the time, shortly after Washington finally approved its change in policy to allow such attacks. "This will mean that Nato countries, the USA and European states, are fighting with Russia."
With the ATACMS and other Western systems, NATO personnel actually have to assist directly with satellite and targeting data, which includes being able to "input flight missions into these missile systems" - as Putin described earlier.
Putin could now order a major attack on Kiev, or command and control centers of Ukraine's armed forces. Russia has also been targeting locations where it's believed that Western munitions are held.
All of this will no doubt make it harder for the incoming Trump administration to negotiate a potential peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, something he's vowed to begin from the moment he enters office again.
