Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine used US-supplied weapons in an attack on Crimea yesterday that killed at least four people and injured 151.
According to the agency, the US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) was used in the attack.
Four were arrested, and the fifth exploded in the air, killing several people in a village in Sevastopol.
According to Russian officials, at least two children were killed in the attack. Pictures and videos posted online showed people running from a beach near Sevastopol, and some injured people being carried in sunnies.
Sky News has not confirmed the images.
“All US ATACMS operational-tactical missile flight missions are entered by American specialists based on their own US satellite intelligence data,” the ministry’s Telegram post said.
“Therefore, the responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on the civilian population in Sevastopol lies primarily with Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, as well as with the Kiev regime, from whose territory this attack was carried out.
“Such actions will not go unanswered.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also directly blamed the US for the attack, saying: “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 that question.”
Russia also summoned US Ambassador Lynne Tracy to the State Department, where she faced accusations that Washington was “waging a hybrid war against Russia and actually becoming a party to the conflict.”
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much wider war involving the world’s largest nuclear power, though he has said Russia does not want a conflict with the NATO alliance.
Neither Ukraine nor the US have commented on the Sevastopol attack.
