Moscow has persistently claimed that it is effectively waging a proxy war with the West.
Russia has recalled the US ambassador over a “barbaric” missile attack that hit a beach in Crimea, killing at least four people, including children, and injuring 151.
The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said on Monday it had summoned Ambassador Lynne Tracy to tell her it squarely blamed the United States for Sunday’s missile attack near the city of Sevastopol. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has persistently claimed that it is effectively waging a proxy war with the West.
A recent US decision allowing Ukraine to use weapons it supplies against targets inside Russian territory risks escalation and will incur “consequences”, the Kremlin said.
The Ukrainian attack on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula was conducted with five US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
He added that four were shot down and a fifth detonated in the air. The ministry claimed that US experts defined the missiles’ flight coordinates based on information from US spy satellites. There was no response from the US, which began supplying Ukraine with missiles earlier this year.
“These actions by Washington… will not go unanswered,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday when summoning the ambassador. “There will definitely be response measures.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the attack “absolutely barbaric” and said at a news conference on Monday that Moscow would react to US involvement.
“You should ask my colleagues in Europe, and especially in Washington… why their governments are killing Russian children,” he suggested to reporters present.
‘Consequences’
Peskov also referred to President Vladimir Putin’s comments about arming countries to potentially launch attacks against Western targets.
Last week, he signed a military alliance pact with North Korea, causing alarm among Western allies.
Russian authorities recently warned that the war in Ukraine is entering its most dangerous phase to date. Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much wider war involving the world’s nuclear powers.
But directly blaming the US for a deadly attack on Crimea – which Russia annexed in 2014 and now considers to be Russian territory, even though most of the world considers it to be part of Ukraine – is a step forward.
“We fully understand who is behind this,” Peskov said, adding that it was clear who supplied Ukraine with weapons, targeted them and provided them with data.
“It is clear that the US involvement in the fighting, which resulted in the death of peaceful Russians, cannot but have consequences,” Peskov said. “Which ones exactly – time will tell.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
