Moscow says it shot down four US-made missiles over southern Russia

Moscow says its air defense systems shot down four US-made missiles over a southern Russian region bordering Ukraine, in one of its first such claims in nearly 10 months of fighting.

“Four American ‘HARM’ anti-radar missiles were shot down in the airspace over the Belgorod region,” Russia’s defense ministry says in a statement on social media, referring to a region that says it is regularly hit by Ukrainian strikes.

Designed to target air defense systems equipped with radars, HARM missiles have a range of more than 48 kilometers (30 miles). The missiles, which were first deployed in 1984, have been adapted so they can be fired from Kyiv’s Soviet-era warplanes.

Western-supplied weapons have helped turn the tide in Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, with Russia suffering a series of setbacks, most recently ceding the southern city of Kherson.