Ukraine claims Russian helicopters destroyed in strike on occupied air bases

Ukraine has said it destroyed nine Russian military helicopters, an air defence system and ammunition depots at two airfields in occupied territory, in strikes that involved Kyiv’s first use of long-range missiles recently supplied by the United States.

Kyiv’s special forces said “Operation Dragonfly” also destroyed other Russian military equipment and damaged the landing strips at Luhansk and Berdyansk airbases, from where Moscow’s air force flies sorties against Ukrainian units fighting to liberate eastern and southeastern areas of their country.

Officials in Moscow did not confirm the strikes, but several Russian military bloggers with close ties to the armed forces said the airbases were hit and sustained damage that one described as “one of the most serious blows” suffered by the Kremlin’s forces since their full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Images posted on social media, purportedly from the scene of the missile strike in Berdyansk, showed fragments of cluster munitions that some military experts said resembled those delivered by the US-made ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System), which US president Joe Biden cleared for delivery to Ukraine in September after rebuffing months of requests.

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“Thank you to everyone who is fighting and working for Ukraine. Thank you to everyone who is helping us. And today I am especially grateful to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. And they are being implemented very accurately – ATACMS have proven themselves,” said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

He also expressed thanks to “every warrior, every brigade of ours that is firmly holding its positions,” amid fierce fighting near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, Bakhmut, Lyman and Avdiivka in Donetsk province and in Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast.

Ukraine argued that ATACMS rockets – which have a range of 300km – were vital to its efforts to destroy Russian military bases, weaponry, command posts and supply lines deep inside occupied territory.

It has also said that Russian attack helicopters have caused severe problems for frontline troops and armour during their counteroffensive in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Ukraine’s military said it shot down all six explosive drones and one of three missiles launched by Russia overnight from Monday into Tuesday. Rescue teams searched through the wreckage of a dormitory that was hit by a missile in the eastern city of Slovyansk, where two people were thought to be buried in the rubble.

In Moscow, Russia’s lower house of parliament began voting to revoke its ratification in 2000 of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, in what the Kremlin calls a response to Washington’s failure to ratify an agreement that both powers signed in 1996.

“For 23 years we have been waiting for the United States to ratify this treaty,” parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said before the first of three mandatory votes in the house. “But Washington – because of its double standards, its irresponsible attitude to global security issues – has not done so.”

Russia says its withdrawal of ratification does not signal any intention to resume nuclear testing, and it would only do so in response to such a move by Washington.