Kiev could not have attacked Crimea with ATACMS missiles without US participation, ambassador Anatoly Antonov has said
The US administration demonstratively supports Kiev in its unjustifiable terrorist strikes against Russian civilians, Moscow’s ambassador Anatoly Antonov has told the press. Ukraine attacked Russia’s Sevastopol on Sunday, using US-provided ATACMS missiles with cluster munition warheads, killing at least four people and injuring at least 151, including dozens of children.
While four of the missiles were intercepted by air defenses, a fifth veered off course and detonated its cluster warhead over a busy Black Sea beach and its weekend crowd, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
The Ukrainian attack was purposefully carried out when there was a maximum concentration of people on the beach, Antonov told journalists when asked to comment on Washington’s lack of reaction to the deadly strike.
“The administration demonstratively supports the crimes of the Kiev regime. It took the side of international terrorism, and condones attacks on civilians by Bandera’s adherents,” the Ambassador stated.
“It is obvious to policymakers in Washington that cluster munitions in ATACMS missiles cannot be launched without the participation of American specialists and support from US intelligence. It is no coincidence that enemy drones are circling over the Black Sea almost every day,” he added.
“All this indicates the death of America’s pseudo-humane foreign policy in the bloody swamp of the Ukrainian crisis,” the diplomat said.
The Russian Defense Ministry has pinned the blame for Ukraine’s “premeditated terrorist missile attack” on Washington, accusing it of both supplying Kiev with the ATACMS missiles, and providing intelligence and reconnaissance data on Russian targets.
According to Sevastopol’s governor, Mikhail Razvozhaev, at least four people, of them two children, were killed in the missile strike. The number of wounded has risen to 151 as of Sunday evening. A joint team of specialists from the Ministry of Health has been dispatched to the city to help the victims. Meanwhile, Bomb disposal crews are working on scene and combing the beach for potential unexploded submunitions of the ATACMS cluster warhead.