The moment a US-supplied ATACMS missile launched by Ukrainian forces detonated above the city of Sevastopol in Russia’s Crimea on Sunday was caught on a video that has surfaced online.
Footage from a popular Black Sea resort near Sevastopol purportedly shows the moment that the long-range missile armed with cluster munitions exploded in the air.
The video shows people at the beach in an area called Uchkuevka in the northern part of the port city. Some of the visitors to the packed beach can be seen looking at the sky, while others are seen running in panic in search of shelter as the sound of an exploding missile can be heard in the clip.
Those who were at the water’s edge were hit the hardest as parts of cluster munitions flew toward the beach from the sea, according to Oleg Komarov, the head of Sevastopol’s emergency services unit.
“There were shrapnel wounds. We evacuated those who were seriously injured first,” he said. “Doctors stopped the bleeding and handed them over to ambulance crews.”
According to media reports, local residents helped evacuate people during the attack. One rescuer, despite being injured by shell fragments himself, continued to escort civilians to shelter. Once the explosions were heard he helped tourists to hide in the back room of the beach bar.
A local bus driver helped transfer people who had injured in the attack from the area, local media said.
Later, Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said that the official death toll had been revised down to four after initial reports had indicated five deaths. According to the lates estimates, 151 were injured in the attack with 27 children in a Sevastopol hospital, six of whom are in serious condition. Over 80 people required hospitalization.
Earlier in the day, Razvozhaev said that Russian air defenses had repelled a Ukrainian missile attack. He added, citing preliminary data, that five aerial targets had been shot down, though numerous shell fragments fell in the coastal area, causing injuries and fires in two locations.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that four ATACMS were destroyed mid-air, while the fifth sustained damage from incoming fire, which caused it to deviate from its course and detonate over the city. The strike targeting civilians in Sevastopol will not go unanswered, the ministry stressed.