US citizens have been warned to shelter in place if an air alert sounds

Embassies in Kyiv shut amid US air attack warning

20 Nov 2024, 03:39 · RTE.ie

The US has shut its embassy in Kyiv due to "specific information of a potential significant air attack" and told its citizens in Ukraine to be ready to swiftly seek shelter.

The Italian and Greek embassies said they had also closed their doors after the unusual US warning, while the French embassy remained open but urged its citizens to be cautious.

Staff at the Irish Embassy in Kyiv are working from home today as a precautionary measure, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Yesterday, Ukraine used US ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles to attack an arms depot inside Russia, making use of newly-granted permission from the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden on the 1,000th day of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has been signalling to the US and its allies for weeks that if they give permission to Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with Western-supplied missiles, then Moscow will consider it a major escalation.

Joe Biden has decided to allow Ukraine hit targets inside Russia

"Out of an abundance of caution, the embassy will be closed, and embassy employees are being instructed to shelter in place," the US Department of State Consular Affairs said in a statement on the embassy's website.

"The US embassy recommends US citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced."

The Russian government said it had no comment.

Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said in an interview published today that it would retaliate against NATO countries that facilitate long-range Ukrainian missile strikes against Russian territory.

Ukraine's military intelligence agency said today that a Russian military command post had been "successfully struck" in the town of Gubkin in Russia's Belgorod region, around 168km from the border with Ukraine.

The Ukrainian statement raised the possibility of a second ATACMS strike, but did not specify who carried out the attack, when it took place or the type of weapon used.

Ukraine has also used drones for deep strikes against targets in Russia.

The war is at a volatile juncture, with a fifth of Ukrainian territory in Russian hands, North Korean troops deployed in Russia's Kursk region and doubts over the future of Western aid as US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.

On Sunday, Russia staged a massive missile and drone strike on the national power grid that killed seven people and renewed fears over the durability of the hobbled energy network.

Long-range missiles

The ATACMS missiles are more than three times the speed of sound (Mach 3) making it difficult for air defences to intercept them.

Their 300km range can reach targets far beyond the front lines of the war.

Russia had been warning the West for months that, if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire US, British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the conflict.

ATACMS weapons are seen fired during US drills with South Korea (file image)

In October, President Vladimir Putin vowed that Moscow would respond to any such strikes.

Yesterday, the Russian leader lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, with nuclear risks rising amid the highest tensions between the Kremlin and West in more than half a century

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," Mr Lavrov told a press conference at the G20 summit in Brazil.

Russia today accused the US of prolonging the "war in Ukraine" by stepping up the weapons deliveries to Kyiv ahead of Mr Trump's return to the White House.

"If you look at the trends of the outgoing US administration, they are fully committed to continuing the war in Ukraine and are doing everything they can to do so," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Mr Peskov was responding to the US saying it would soon provide Ukraine with antipersonnel land mines.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News last night that Ukraine would lose if the US, its main military backer, pulled funding.

The US has sought commitments from Ukraine to use the freshly pledged mines on its own territory and only in areas that are not populated in order to decrease the risk they pose to civilians.

The mines are known as being "non-persistent" because they go inert after a set period of time, when their battery power runs out.

Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine would lose if the US pulled funding

The UN has called Ukraine "the most mined country in the world," almost three years into Russia's full-scale military offensive and more than a decade after Russian-backed militias in the Donbas region launched a bloody campaign to secede from Kyiv.

Overnight, Russia said that it had shot down 50 Ukrainian drones, mostly over border regions.

Russian systems "destroyed or intercepted 44 Ukrainian aerial drones," according to a statement from its Defence Ministry.

The majority were shot down over the Novgorod region, according to the ministry.

Other drones were downed in Kursk, Belgorod and Briansk, as well as in the Moscow region.

In addition, six Ukrainian drones were shot down this morning over the Samara, according to the regional governor.

The attack did not cause any injuries or damage, he said on Telegram.

Russia's forces have also been advancing on the ground.

Today, they claimed to have captured the Ukrainian town of Illinka, close to the strategic hub of Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk region.

In another sign of escalation, Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday signed a decree lowering the threshold for when Russia would use nuclear weapons.