(Moscow) Russia on Monday threatened the United States with reprisals, accusing them of “killing Russian children”, the day after a Ukrainian strike in Crimea carried out according to it using American missiles, a new escalation between the two rivals around Ukraine.
Russia considers that Washington has become a party to the conflict by authorizing Kyiv to use long-range missiles against Russian regions and Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014 and which serves as a rear base for the Russian army.
“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 Kremlin spokesman, calling on journalists to ask in 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 data.
The West recently began to authorize Kyiv to use some of its weapons to strike military sites on Russian territory used to bomb Ukraine.
Ambassador summoned
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 the port city of Sevastopol.
The local governor indicated that debris from the intercepted projectiles 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 installed by Russia.
On Monday, Russian diplomacy summoned the American ambassador to Moscow, Lynne Tracy, to warn her that Russia was planning “retaliatory measures”, believing that “the United States […] 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,” the ministry insisted.
The day before, the Russian Ministry of Defense had also promised a response, emphasizing that ATACMS targeting data were necessarily “captured by American specialists” based on satellite intelligence.
Russia has been carrying out deadly strikes against Ukraine daily from its territory for more than two years.
For Ukraine, the military targets in Crimea and Russian territory are legitimate, especially at a time when the Ukrainian forces, which suffer from a deficit in men and weapons, are facing increased pressure from the Russian army on forehead.
“Crimea is a vast military camp and warehouse [russe] with hundreds of direct military targets,” accused an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak.
Eight civilians killed
Ukraine suffers daily Russian strikes, which have notably ravaged its energy infrastructure, forcing power outages across the country to deal with electricity shortages. At least eight civilians died on Monday.
According to Ukrainian authorities, at least four were killed and 40 others injured in Ukraine in a Russian missile strike on the town of Pokrovsk, an area in the Donetsk region (east) where Russian assaults are increasing.
PHOTO ALINA SMUTKO, REUTERS
People clean up the ruins of a residential building destroyed by a Russian missile strike in Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, June 24, 2024.
A woman was also killed in Toretsk, an area under Ukrainian control in the east which is also experiencing an increase in attacks. And in the Kherson region (south), a 40-year-old man was killed by a bombing in the town of Stepanivka, according to Kyiv.
In the northeast, two people died after a “car hit an anti-tank mine,” according to Kharkiv Governor Oleg Synegoubov.
A Russian missile also struck a warehouse in Odessa, a strategic Black Sea port in southern Ukraine, in the morning, injuring three people.
Finally, the Ukrainian general staff accused Russia on Monday of intensifying its attacks using tear gas used illegally during a conflict.
The Ukrainian army says it has “documented 715 cases” in May, “271 cases more than in April”, denouncing a “violation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Manufacturing, Storage and of the use of chemical weapons and their destruction” (CIAC).
The CIAC prohibits the use of irritant gases as a “means of war”, authorizing them only for the maintenance of order.