The US, UK, and its allies in the EU bear responsibility for a massive Ukrainian strike on the Russian border city of Belgorod, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. An attack that hit the center of the city claimed the lives of at least 20 people and left more than 100 injured, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
“Britain is behind the terrorist act,” Zakharova said in an audio statement, adding that London and Washington “have been inciting the Kiev regime” to commit acts of terrorism amid the failed summer counteroffensive.
The much-hyped six-month operation failed to bring about significant changes to the front line despite heavy casualties on the Ukrainian side. According to the latest Russian military estimates, Ukraine has lost over 125,000 troops and 16,000 pieces of heavy equipment in the counteroffensive. Much of the heavy armor and weaponry supplied to Kiev by its Western backers ended up destroyed or captured by Russian troops.
“Amid the lack of even the smallest chances to improve the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ miserable situation on the ground, [Washington and London] resorted to the tactics of terrorist attacks against civilians,” Zakharova said, without providing evidence of the US and UK playing a role in the strike on Saturday. She added that Russia would raise the issue of Ukraine’s actions at a UN Security Council meeting.
The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also claimed that the UK had virtually prohibited Kiev from holding talks with Moscow, focusing on achieving a “battlefield victory” instead, referring to an earlier interview by senior Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia. The politician, who heads President Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in parliament and led the Ukrainian delegation at the Istanbul talks, told Ukrainian TV channel 1+1 that the conflict could have ended in spring 2022.
At the time, Moscow had essentially offered Ukraine peace in exchange for neutrality and a promise not to join NATO, he said in late November. Arakhamia also revealed that then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who visited Kiev in early April, told Ukrainian officials not to “sign anything” with the Russians and to “just continue fighting.”
The EU is responsible for the tragedy on Saturday as well, Zakharova said, adding that the bloc continues to supply Kiev with weapons. She noted that Ukrainian troops are using banned cluster munitions against civilians.
Earlier on Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that rockets with cluster bomb warheads were used in the attack on Belgorod. Cluster munitions were banned by more than 110 nations under a UN convention in 2008 due to the extreme danger they pose to civilians.
Washington announced that it would supply Kiev with cluster bombs from its Cold War-era stockpiles in July, claiming that Ukraine had vowed not to use them in populated areas. Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time that the use of cluster bombs should be regarded as a war crime.