The images broadcast by Russian TV show the bewilderment and fear of swimmers on the beach on a summer Sunday in Sevastopol, a Crimean city targeted with drones and missiles by Kiev. The roar that triggers the escape can be heard, then the first details released via Telegram which report already dead and injured while the Kerch bridge connecting Crimea to Russia is blocked. And Moscow thunders: Washington is responsible for the deadly attack on Sevastopol with the use of American Atacms missiles, and such actions – states the Russian Ministry of Defense – “will not go unpunished”. The toll from the attack shortly afterwards settled at 5 dead, including three children, with another five children in intensive care while in total there were 124 injured, according to the city governor Mikhail Razvozzhayev. Among the victims there would also be the daughter of Oleg Averyanov, the deputy mayor of the port city of Magadan, the Interfax agency announced, citing the mayor of Magadan, Yury Grishan. «There are children among the victims, including Sofia, 9 years old, the daughter of the deputy mayor of Magadan. The little girl was on holiday in Sevastopol with her parents,” writes Grishan on Telegram.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lets it be known that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in contact with the Crimean government and military: “The main objective now is to offer all the necessary assistance to the wounded,” he says, while the Ministry of Russian defense presses Kiev, which launched a “terrorist attack” on the civilian infrastructure of Sevastopol with the use of Atacms tactical missiles carrying cluster munitions, it says, explaining that four missiles were shot down by Russian air defense systems, while one another exploded over the city.
The meaning of American responsibilities according to Moscow is quickly explained: «All flight specifications for the use of Atacms are entered by US specialists on the basis of their own satellite reconnaissance data. For this reason, the responsibility for the deliberate missile attack against civilians in Sevastopol falls first and foremost on Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, and on the Kiev regime, from whose territory the attack was carried out”, underlines the ministry, conferring clearly an entirely political sense to military dynamics, thus evoking and returning to stigmatize the recent decision of American President Joe Biden to give the green light to Kiev’s use of American weapons to strike on Russian territory.
That Ukrainian firepower has improved somewhat or certainly strengthened since the US Congress approved a crucial military aid package for Kiev last April is evident from developments on the ground, including the fact that Ukraine has succeeded to capture some Russian positions, recently reconquering areas southwest of Vovchansk which had long been a primary objective of the Russian advance near Kharkiv. The decisions then taken by several Western countries to allow Kiev to strike Russian territory with its own weapons contributed to stopping the advance of Moscow’s forces along the north-eastern front, also close to Kharkiv. While the Ukrainians’ ability to strike on Russian territory also seems to be growing: the Ukrainian armed forces claimed to have destroyed a Russian warehouse, in the Krasnodar region east of Crimea, used for launching Iranian-made kamikaze drones and for training soldiers, killing several people in the attack. The episode dates back to Friday and in the last few hours Kiev has brought satellite images as proof of the ‘mission accomplished’.
To know more
Children are “collateral” victims in a conflict without rules
Putin, the latest international pariah as we deal with the Taliban and Hamas
#RussiaUkraine #war #Kiev #hits #Sevastopol #Moscow #accuses #Washington