The Kremlin directly blamed the United States for the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack on Sevastopol using American ATACMS missiles, which killed at least four people, including two children, and injured 151 people.
The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the US Ambassador to the carpet
Moscow has officially warned Washington that this incident will not remain without consequences, Reuters reports. The Ukrainian conflict has led to the largest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis. But directly blaming the United States for the deadly attack on Crimea is a new step in growing tensions between the parties, the agency notes.
Moscow said Washington supplied the weapons and American military experts collected data and selected targets for the missiles. However, neither Ukraine nor the United States commented on the attack, Reuters notes.
The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador Lynn Tracy to the carpet, where she was charged that Washington was “waging a hybrid war against Russia and has actually become a party to the conflict.” She was told that the attack “will not go unpunished” and “retaliatory measures will certainly follow,” the article states.
After the United States allowed Ukraine to use some American systems against Russia, the Kremlin sent several signals that it viewed this as a serious escalation of the situation. In particular, Vladimir Putin said that Moscow could supply weapons to the DPRK, which, in his opinion, would be a mirror response to the military assistance that the West provides to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
What happened
On June 23, Ukraine launched an ATACMS missile attack on Sevastopol. As a result of air defense actions, one of the missiles deviated from course and exploded over a beach in the suburbs Sevastopol Uchkuevka, where at that time there were hundreds of vacationers. As a result, 4 people died, incl. 2 children, and about 150 more were injured.
Military experts believe that the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out further strikes with the help of American ATACMS on Crimea/Sevastopol during the daytime in order to provoke panic and, of course, disrupt the “holiday season.”
Most likely the blow was purely demonstrative
There is a version that they strike during the day:
A) to force the Russians not to shoot down Ukrainian missiles, so as not to provoke panic and possible casualties among civilians.
B) if the Russians shoot down and there are casualties among civilians, then this is also a plus for Bankova. Panic will intensify in Crimea. The number of vacationers will fall, Crimea will receive less income, etc.
The reaction of Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to Andriy Ermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, is noteworthy:
“In Crimea “there are not and cannot be any “beaches”, “tourist areas” and other fictitious signs of “peaceful life”. This is also a large military camp and warehouse, with hundreds of direct military targets, which the Russians are cynically trying to disguise and cover with their own civilian . Which, in turn, are… civilian occupiers.”
With his statement Podolyak:
a) justified all Russian strikes on any targets, including casualties among civilians,
b) dispelled the myth that Ukraine values Crimeans, but it turns out that it considers them all “occupiers.”
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