He Kremlin warned the United States on Monday of the “consequences” and summoned its ambassadora day after Moscow said a Ukrainian attack with a US missile in Crimea killed four people.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskovdescribed the attack on Sevastopol as “barbarism” and accused Washington of “killing Russian children.”
Two of the victims were minors.
Peskov referred to the president’s comments Vladimir Putin earlier this month about the possibility of arming countries to launch attacks against Western targets.
“The involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians die, cannot remain without consequences.”Peskov told reporters. “Time will tell what they will be,” he added.
The Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the US envoy Lynne Tracy on Monday.
He later issued a statement stating that Washington “bears the same responsibility as the kyiv regime in this atrocity” and that the attack “will not go unpunished.”
Russia declared that Sunday’s attack on the city of Sevastopol was carried out with an ATACMS missile supplied by the United States and loaded with a cluster warhead.
Local officials based in Moscow said that The missile hit an area of the port city with sandy beaches and hotels.
In a meeting with international news agencies, including AFP, Putin this month criticized the delivery of long-range weapons to Ukraine by the West.
“If someone thinks that it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to attack our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same type to regions of the world where there will be attacks on sensitive installations of those Occidental countries)?”. Putin said.
“That is, the response may be asymmetric. We will think about it”he told reporters.
Peskov also referred to Putin’s comments that Western countries were providing data on the targets of Ukrainian attacks.
Crimea was unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Andriy Yermak, The head of the Ukrainian president’s office said on Monday: “Crimea is Ukraine.”
“Russia must leave the peninsula. Her army and military objects there must cease to exist,” she said on social media.
A senior advisor to the Ukrainian president, Mykhailo Podolyakalso suggested that Crimea was a legitimate military objective.
“Crimea is also a large military camp and warehouse, with hundreds of direct military targets, which the Russians are cynically trying to hide and cover up with their own civilians,” he said.
(With information from AFP)
