Russia gives itself the right to carry out “severe reprisals” after drone attacks attributed to Ukraine that targeted the city of Moscow and the annexed Crimean peninsula on Monday, Russian diplomacy said in a statement.
• Read also: Drone attacks on Moscow and Crimea, strikes near Odessa
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“We consider these events as a new resort to terrorist methods by the political and military leaders of Ukraine, to intimidate the civilian population,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
- Justin Massie, professor in the political science department at UQAM and co-director of the Strategic Analysis Network via QUB-radio :
“The will of the West to see a worsening of the situation (in the conflict in Ukraine) is behind the brazen acts of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis”, still assured Russian diplomacy, promising to “find and punish” all the culprits.
“These attacks made no sense from a military point of view. We condemn this new crime of the Kyiv regime and call on international organizations to assess it appropriately,” the ministry added.
A source within the Ukrainian Defense who requested anonymity confirmed to AFP that the attack against Moscow had been carried out by the GUR, military intelligence.
According to the Russian army, two Ukrainian drones were neutralized and crashed without causing any casualties, one near the Russian Ministry of Defense, and the other on a shopping center in southern Moscow.
In Crimea, an ammunition depot was also hit Monday in a new Ukrainian drone strike in the Jankoy district in the north of the annexed peninsula, Russian Governor Sergey Asksionov reported.