Russia vows response after Ukraine fires long-range US missiles

FILE - This photo taken from video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Feb. 19, 2022, shows a Russian Mobile launchers of Iskander short-range nuclear-capable missiles during a military exercise at a training ground in Russia. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

Russia warned on Tuesday that it would respond after Ukraine fired longer-range U.S. missiles at its territory for the first time, as President Vladimir Putin issued a nuclear threat on the 1,000th day of the war.

A senior official told AFP that a strike on Russia's Bryansk region earlier on Tuesday "was carried out by ATACMS missiles"—a reference to the U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System.

Speaking 1,000 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the attack showed Western countries wanted to "escalate" the conflict.

"We will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia. And we will react accordingly," Lavrov told a press conference at the G20 summit in Brazil.

Putin signed a decree on Tuesday lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons, a move that the White House, U.K., and European Union condemned as "irresponsible."

He has used nuclear rhetoric throughout the conflict but has grown increasingly belligerent since last year, pulling out of a nuclear test ban treaty and a key arms reduction agreement with the U.S.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky accused G20 leaders in Brazil of failing to act over Putin's nuclear threats, saying the Russian leader had no interest in peace.

He later warned that Ukraine would lose the war if the United States cuts military funding to Kiev.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is a vocal...