The recent Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol using American-made ATACMS missiles was “terrorism” and constituted an act of war by the United States against Russian civilians, US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian military fired five ATACMS missiles at Crimea on Sunday, each armed with cluster munition warheads. While Russian air defenses managed to destroy four of them, the fifth opened up mid-air above the seaside and rained explosives onto beachgoers. Over 150 people were injured in the attack and at least five were killed, including two children.
Responding to the incident in a post on X on Wednesday, Kennedy noted that the US-supplied ATACMS missile launcher receives targeting data from “a sophisticated system only Americans can operate within Ukraine.”
He suggested that the only word to describe Kiev’s attack on a civilian beach is ‘terrorism’ and claimed that the fact that this was done using what are effectively US-operated weapons meant that it was also “an act of war by the US against Russian civilians.”
“Only Congress can legally declare war,” Kennedy stressed. “They should stop the unaccountable and reckless hawks directing an impaired President Biden.”
Sunday’s strike has also been condemned by former US Congressman Ron Paul, who described it as a “Ukrainian and American attack on Russia” to which Moscow “can’t not respond.”
Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene also responded to the attack by stating it was something that “should not be happening” and pondered what would have happened if “Russia, using a Russian satellite, fired cluster munitions on a Florida beach.”
Meanwhile, Moscow has said that it “understands perfectly well” who is behind the attack on Sevastopol and who was guiding the missiles involved in the strike, and warned that the “direct involvement of the US in hostility that results in Russian civilians being killed [will] have consequences.”
The Kremlin has not yet outlined what this response might entail, but suggested that it could involve Moscow arming the adversaries of Western nations. The Pentagon has denied involvement in the targeting of the missiles, saying Ukraine makes its own attack decisions.