(Moscow) The Kremlin on Monday threatened the United States with “consequences”, the day after a Ukrainian strike in Crimea, carried out according to Moscow using an American missile, and accused the West of “killing children Russians.
Posted at 7:51 a.m.
“It is obvious that the participation of the United States in the fighting, its direct participation, which leads to the death of Russian citizens, must have consequences,” said Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, calling on journalists to ask Europe and the United States “why their governments are killing Russian children.”
According to Moscow, long-range ATACMS missile strikes, like Sunday’s in Russian-annexed Ukrainian Crimea, cannot be carried out by Ukraine alone because they require American specialists, technology and intelligence data.
Americans and Europeans have recently begun to authorize Ukraine to use Western weapons to strike military targets on Russian territory used in particular to bomb Ukrainian territory.
Moscow has considered Crimea as its own since its annexation in 2014. This has been denounced by the overwhelming majority of the international community and is not recognized by Russia’s allies such as China.
Referring to retaliation, Vladimir Putin threatened this month to deliver equivalent weapons to enemies of the West so that they could attack their interests in other regions of the world.
According to the Russian military, five ATACMS missiles were fired by Ukrainian forces on Sunday and four were reportedly destroyed in flight near Sevastopol, a port city hosting the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The local governor indicated that debris from the intercepted missiles had fallen “on coastal areas”. At least four deaths were recorded, including two children, and more than 150 people were injured, according to local authorities set up by Russia.
On Monday, Russian diplomacy summoned the United States Ambassador, Lynne Tracy, to Moscow to warn her that Russia was planning “retaliatory measures”, estimating that “the United States, which is waging a hybrid war against Russia, became party to the conflict” in Ukraine.
“The ambassador was told that such actions by Washington […] authorizing strikes inside Russian territory, would not go unpunished. Retaliatory measures will follow,” insisted the ministry.
The day before, the Russian Defense Ministry had also promised a response, emphasizing that ATACMS targeting data was “captured by American specialists on the basis of data from US satellite intelligence services”.
For Ukraine, military targets in Crimea are legitimate and the peninsula itself must be retaken.
“Crimea is a vast military camp and warehouse [russe] with hundreds of direct military targets that the Russians seek to cynically camouflage with their civilians,” accused an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podolyak.
Four dead and 34 injured in eastern Ukraine
At least four people were killed and 34 others injured in Ukraine on Monday in a Russian strike on the town of Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region (east), local authorities said.
Clashes have intensified in recent days in the Pokrovsk and Toretsk sectors, where the Russian army is trying to make gains by deploying significant resources.
“At least four people were killed and 34 injured, such is the provisional toll of the attack on Pokrovsk,” regional governor Vadym Filachkine said on Telegram, adding that “two children aged 12 and 13” were among them. The wounded.
“This is one of the most serious attacks against civilians in recent times,” added the governor, referring to a strike carried out using an Iskander ballistic missile, which can carry up to 700 kg of explosive charge.
The town, which had 61,000 inhabitants before the war, is located around twenty kilometers west of the front line, where fighting continues particularly near Novooleksandrivka, according to the Ukrainian general staff.
Mr. Filachkin said separately that a 62-year-old man had been killed in a Russian attack on the town of Kurakhové, further south.
“The Russians launched an aerial guided missile at the city, and infrastructure was damaged,” he said, without giving further details.
Four injured in Russian missile attack in Odessa
The southern Ukrainian city of Odessa was attacked on Monday by Russian cruise missiles, injuring four and causing a major fire over 3,000 m2 ”, according to local authorities.
PHOTO OLEKSANDR GIMANOV, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Firefighters work to put out a fire at the site of a Russian missile strike in Odessa on June 24.
“On the morning of June 24, the Russian occupiers attacked the Odessa region with two cruise missiles, apparently of the Iskander-K type,” the military air command of the Southern region said on Telegram.
The region’s governor, Oleg Kiper, explained on Ukrainian television that “a fire broke out on an area of 3,000 square meters” and that “firefighters are currently working to prevent the fire from spreading to the whole building “.
“So far we are aware of four injuries. A 48-year-old man also consulted a doctor for an arm injury,” he said on Telegram.
“A warehouse was destroyed,” the military command of the region said on its social networks, affirming that it was “civilian infrastructure”.
“The Russian attack hit civilian infrastructure in Odessa. Rescuers and emergency services are working on site,” city mayor Gennady Trukhanov said on Telegram.
A Black Sea port city vital for Ukrainian exports, Odessa is regularly targeted by missiles and drones from Moscow.
In the neighboring Kherson region, a 40-year-old man was killed in the town of Stepanivka bombed by “Russian forces”, according to the head of the military administration of the area, explaining that two other people were injured.
In the north of the country, two people died after “a car hit an anti-tank mine”, according to the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegoubov.
“The battle for Novooleksandrivka continues”, not far from Avdiïvka, recalled the Ukrainian general staff, while Moscow continues to nibble territory after the fall of this mining town in February.
“Two attacks were repelled” in the Toretsk sector, added this source.
Moscow intensifies attacks using banned irritant gas, Kyiv says
Russia has intensified its attacks using tear gas diverted from its original use, the Ukrainian army said on Monday, which recorded 715 attacks of this type in the month of May alone.
The modus operandi would be the dropping by drone of “K-51 and RG-VO grenades”, normally used by law enforcement to disperse riots, according to the same source.
The Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement on Facebook that it had “documented 715 cases of use of munitions containing dangerous chemical compounds by the Russians” for the month of May, “271 cases more than in April.”
Last month, “215 soldiers” from Ukraine visited “medical institutions” and showed “symptoms of chemical damage of varying severity,” it also said.
“The use of chemical weapons or chemical riot control agents as a means of warfare constitutes a violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their destruction” (CIAC),” recalled the Ukrainian army.
The CIAC effectively prohibits the use of tear gas as a “means of war,” but allows it for maintaining law and order.
The American State Department had, in May, accused Moscow of having used a “chemical weapon”, chloropicrin, a suffocating agent, against Ukrainian troops, in violation of the CIAC, although ratified by Moscow which denies possessing a chemical arsenal.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) deemed the information it received on the alleged use of chemical weapons in Ukraine “insufficiently substantiated”.
