The US is helping Ukraine launch “terrorist strikes” against Russian civilians, Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has said. Kiev used US-provided ATACMS missiles with cluster munition warheads to attack the Russian city of Sevastopol on Sunday, killing at least four people and injuring more than 150 others, including dozens of children.
While four of the missiles were intercepted by air defenses, a fifth veered off course and detonated a cluster warhead over a busy Black Sea beach, 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 Russian Defense Ministry has pinned the blame for Ukraine’s “premeditated terrorist missile attack” on Washington, accusing it of 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, two of whom were children, were killed in the missile strike. The number of wounded had risen to 151 as of Sunday evening. A team of specialists from the Ministry of Health has been dispatched to the city to help the victims. Bomb disposal crews are combing the beach for potential unexploded submunitions from the ATACMS cluster warhead.