Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said Wednesday that its soldiers are using US-provided HIMARS rocket systems to target pontoon bridges and engineering equipment in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.
The statement, made on Telegram, marks the first time Kyiv has said it’s using US rockets inside Russia, which marks a significant escalation of the proxy war. The US has said Ukraine is allowed to use US-provided weapons in its Kursk offensive but has not confirmed the use of HIMARS.
Russian officials have previously said that HIMARS have been used to destroy bridges inside Kursk. “Where do Russian pontoon bridges ‘disappear’ in the Kursk region? Operators … accurately destroy them,” Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said.
The US still says that it won’t support long-range strikes inside Russian territory, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pushing hard for the US and other NATO countries to lift all restrictions on the use of their weapons.
On Monday, Zelensky said the Kursk offensive shows Russia’s red lines were a “bluff” and called his Western backers “naive” for worrying about the risk of escalation. “We are witnessing a significant ideological shift—the naive, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled apart these days,” he said.
But a NATO-backed invasion of Ukraine risks a major escalation from Russia. Only a few months ago, Moscow warned the UK that if British weapons are used inside Russian territory, Russia could respond by targeting British military sites in Ukraine and “beyond.”