Ukraine used US-supplied ATACMS missiles to hit Russian territory on Tuesday, after authorization was granted by US President Joe Biden's administration.

Russia said its forces shot down five of the six missiles fired at a military facility in the Bryansk region.

Ukraine said it hit a Russian weapons depot about 110 km inside Russia, in an attack that caused secondary explosions. Ukraine's military has not publicly specified the weapons used, but a Ukrainian government source and a US official confirmed that they used ATACMS.

A US official said that Russia intercepted two of the eight missiles and that the attack was against an ammunition supply point.

Biden gave approval this week for Ukraine to use ATACMS, the longer-range missiles that Washington has supplied, for such attacks inside Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the use of ATACMS was a clear sign that the West wanted to escalate the conflict.

Moscow has said that such weapons cannot be launched without direct US operational support and that their use would make Washington a direct combatant in the war, provoking Russian retaliation.

The attacks took place as Ukraine commemorated a thousand days of war, with a fifth of its territory in Russian hands and doubts about the future of Western support as US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

The missile's range of up to 300 km is much shorter than some that Moscow has used to hit Ukraine, including its Kinzhal hypersonic weapon, with a reported range of up to 2,000 km.

Trump has criticized the scale of US aid to Kiev and said he will end the war quickly, without saying how. Both sides seem to anticipate that his return in two months will be accompanied by a push for peace talks, which are not known to have taken place since the first months of the war.

"At this stage of the war, it is being decided who will prevail. Whether we over the enemy, or the enemy over us, Ukrainians... and Europeans. And everyone in the world who wants to live freely and not be subject to a dictator," he said in parliament. (Reuters)