Washington is partially responsible for Ukraine’s missile strike on a bakery in the city of Lisichansk in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) last week that killed over two dozen civilians, Moscow’s permanent envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia stated on Tuesday.
On February 3, the Armed Forces of Ukraine used high-power precision weaponry, presumably US-supplied HIMARS missiles, to target the bakery. The attack almost completely destroyed the two-story building and left some 40 people buried in the rubble, according to Nebenzia.
Some 28 civilians died in the strike, including a pregnant woman and her five-year-old child. LPR Minister of Emergency Situations Aleksey Poteleschenko was among those killed in the attack.
Speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council initiated by Russia in response to the strike, Nebenzia stressed that the US is to be considered an accomplice in the attack, which Moscow has described as an “act of terrorism.”
“If someone undertakes to argue that Western countries have nothing to do with it and that Kiev picks its own targets for strikes, they should be reminded of the confession of Vadim Skibitsky, a representative of the Defense Intelligence (Service) of Ukraine,” the diplomat said.
Nebenzia recalled that in August 2022, Skibitsky admitted that in order to use the HIMARS systems, Kiev must first obtain target clearance from Washington. “So it is quite obvious who was involved in the Lisichansk attack,” the ambassador said. This also applies to the “dozens if not hundreds” of other crimes committed by Kiev using Western weapons, such as the recent downing of a Russian Il-76 aircraft carrying Ukrainian POWs, he added.
The diplomat also pointed out that the time and place of Kiev’s attack on Lisichansk were chosen deliberately, as Ukraine’s forces were aware that there are not many recreational places left in the city. “The neo-Nazis deliberately waited for the moment when families went for a walk on their day off, and cynically attacked almost the only place of leisure in Lisichansk,” Nebenzia said.
Тhe Russian envoy reiterated calls on the members of the UN Security Council and the UN leadership to “strongly condemn the attack on Lisichansk and all other terrorist acts by the Kiev regime.”
“The Bandera junta views your silence as a carte blanche to commit more crimes. For our part, we confirm that all those involved – the organizers and the perpetrators of this crime – will be identified and held accountable,” Nebenzia added. Russia will achieve its goals of demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine through either diplomatic or military means, he insisted.