Russia blames US for deadly Ukrainian attack on Crimea | World News

Russia said on Sunday that the United States was responsible for a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula with five US missiles, killing at least five people, including three children, and injuring 124 others.

The Russian Defense Ministry said four of the US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles equipped with cluster warheads had been shot down by air defense systems and the ammunition of a fifth had detonated in the air.

The ministry said US specialists had determined the missiles’ flight coordinates using information from American spy satellites, so Washington was directly responsible.

“The responsibility for the targeted missile attack on the civilian population of Sevastopol lies primarily with Washington, which supplied Ukraine with these weapons, and with the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this attack was carried out,” the ministry said in a statement.

also read | The issues that divided Russia and Ukraine

The United States began supplying Ukraine with longer-range (300 km) ATACMS missiles earlier this year.

Reuters was unable to immediately confirm battlefield reports from either side.

Russian state television footage showed people running from a beach and some being carried away on sun loungers.

Russian authorities in Crimea said rocket fragments hit shortly after midday near a beach in the north of the city of Sevastopol, where locals were vacationing.

At least 124 people were injured, said Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko. Among the injured were 27 children, five of whom were in serious condition, authorities said.

RUSSIA PROMISES AN ANSWER

Russia will respond to Sunday’s attack, the Defense Ministry said, without giving further details. The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin has been in “constant contact with the military” since the attack on Sevastopol.

Neither Ukraine nor the United States has commented on the attack, which came on a day when Ukraine said Russian strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv had killed one person and wounded 10 others.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and today considers the Black Sea peninsula an integral part of its territory, although most of the world still considers it part of Ukraine.

Putin has repeatedly accused the United States of using Ukraine to undermine Russia’s own security – which Kyiv and its Western allies deny – and warned of the growing risk of a direct confrontation between Moscow and the US-led NATO alliance.

Putin sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine on February 24, 2022, in what he called a defensive move against a hostile and aggressive West. Ukraine and the West say Russia is waging an imperialist war of aggression and land theft.