RUSSIA  -Russia has blamed the US and vowed “consequences” for a Ukrainian missile strike on Sevastopol in occupied Crimea on Sunday, which officials say killed four people – including two children. Russia’s defence ministry said the missiles used by Ukraine were US-supplied ATACMS missiles, and claimed they were programmed by US specialists. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the strike “barbaric” and accused the US of “killing Russian children”. He pointed towards comments by President Vladimir Putin, who recently vowed to target countries supplying weapons to Ukraine.

Moscow said Sunday’s deaths and injuries were caused by falling debris, after its air defences in Crimea intercepted five missiles loaded with cluster warheads launched by Ukrainian forces. Footage carried on Russian state TV showed chaos on the beach in the Uchkuyevka area, as people ran from the falling debris and some injured people were carried away on sun loungers. Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Sunday that all ATACMS missiles are programmed by US specialists and guided by American satellite reconacince. Moscow illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and just a handful of countries recognise the peninsula as Russian territory. It therefore does not fall under the US demands that Ukraine refrain from using Washington-supplied weapons to strike Russian territory.

But Mr Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Monday that the “involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences”.The Russian foreign ministry summoned the US Ambassador Lynne Tracy on Monday, before issuing a statement accusingMr Putin just last week talked about who is aiming these absolutely technologically complex missiles at targets, who is providing these launches. These are not Ukrainians. “If someone thinks it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to attack our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same class to regions of the world where there will be strikes on sensitive facilities of those Western countries he said. Mykhailo Podolyak – a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky – said the peninsula was in effect “a large military camp” which he said held “hundreds of direct military targets, which the Russians are cynically trying to hide and cover up with their own civilians”.

The UN’s human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine says at least 10,000 civilians have been killed since Russia invaded in February 2022. The real figure, officials say, is likely to be far higher. (BBC)…[+]