Russia has warned the United States it will face unspecified “consequences” after a Ukrainian air strike on Crimea which is believed to have been undertaken using long-range missiles supplied by the United States.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s official spokesman and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, condemned the raid on the city of Sevastopol and accused Washington of “killing Russian children”. Four people died in the attack, two of them minors.
Peskov told reporters: “The involvement by the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot go without consequences.
“Time will tell what these will be.”
Peskov also highlighted Putin’s suggestion earlier this month that he could order retaliatory strikes against Western targets.
Meanwhile, Russia‘s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy to grill her about Sunday’s attack.
It subsequently issued a statement saying that Washington “bears equal responsibility with the Kyiv regime for this atrocity”, warning the strike would “not go unpunished.”
Russia claims the Sevastopol attack was carried out using US-provided ATACMS missiles loaded with a cluster warhead.
Moscow-backed authorities in Crimea claim the weapons hit an area with recreational beaches and hotels.
Washington “has effectively become a party” to the war on Ukraine’s side, the ministry said in a statement, adding, “Retaliatory measures will certainly follow.” It did not elaborate.
“Allowing strikes deep inside the Russian territory will not be left unanswered’, the statement added.
There was no immediate comment from US or Ukrainian officials and Russia‘s claims about the missiles used could not be independently verified.
Kyiv’s forces have relied heavily on Western-supplied weaponry since Russia’s invasion more than three years ago. The military aid has been crucial in allowing Ukraine to hold the Kremlin’s army at bay, with few major changes along the 620-mile (1,000-kilometres) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine for many months.
Some Western countries have hesitated over providing more – and more sophisticated – help for Kyiv’s army because of concerns about potentially provoking the Kremlin. But as Ukraine has at times struggled to hold the line against Russia’s bigger and better-equipped military, Western leaders have gradually relented and granted more support.
In the latest key development, the Pentagon said last week that Ukraine’s military is being allowed to use longer-range missiles provided by the US to strike targets inside Russia if it is acting in self-defence.
Since the outset of the war, the US had maintained a policy of not allowing Ukraine to use the weapons it provided to hit targets on Russian soil for fear of further escalating the conflict.
Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that most of the world rejected as unlawful, long had been declared a fair target for Ukraine by its Western allies.
Writing on social media today, Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said: “Russia must leave the peninsula.
“Their army and military objects there must cease to exist,” he wrote on social media.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, likewise claimed Crimea was a legitimate military target.
He explained: “Crimea is also a large military camp and warehouse, with hundreds of direct military targets, which the Russians are cynically trying to hide and cover up with their own civilians.”