The Russian government on Monday, June 24 directly blamed the United States for an attack on annexed Crimea with U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles that killed at least four people and injured 151, warning the U.S. that retaliation would follow.
At least two children were
killed in the attack on Sevastopol on Sunday, according to Russian officials.
People were shown running from a beach near Sevastopol and some of the injured
were being carried off on sun loungers.
Russia vows retaliation against
US after Ukraine
Despite the war in Ukraine
triggering the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis, Russia blamed the United States for a deadly attack on
Crimea - which Russia annexed in 2014 and now considers to be Russian territory
although most of the world considers to be part of Ukraine is unusual.
"You should ask my
colleagues in Europe, and above all in Washington, the press secretaries, why
their governments are killing Russian children. Just ask them this
question," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday of the
attack.
Russia said that the United
States had supplied the weapons used to attack Crimea while U.S. military
specialists had aimed the weapons and provided data for them.
On Monday, Russia summoned U.S.
Ambassador Lynne Tracy to the foreign ministry where she faced accusations that
Washington was "waging a hybrid war against Russia and has actually become
a party to the conflict".
The attack, Russia told Tracy,
would "not go unpunished. Retaliatory measures will definitely
follow."
Russian President Vladimir
Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much broader war involving the
world's biggest nuclear powers, though he has said that Russia does not want a
conflict with the U.S.-led NATO alliance.
Putin ordered drills to
practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, suggested Russia could
deploy conventional missiles in striking distance of the United States and its
allies, and agreed to a mutual defence pact with North Korea.
Asked what the Russian response
would be to the attack in Crimea, Peskov recalled Putin's words on June 6 about
supplying weapons to regions near the U.S. and its allies.
"Of course, the
involvement of the United States in the fighting, as a result of which peaceful
Russians are dying, cannot but have consequences," Peskov said.
"Which ones exactly - time
will tell."
Post a Comment