A man walks past the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower and St. Basil’s Cathedral in downtown Moscow. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Kremlin on Monday warned the United States of “consequences” and summoned its Ambassador after Moscow said a Ukrainian strike with a U.S. missile on Crimea killed four persons.

Moscow has increasingly blasted Washington and Kyiv’s Western backers for supplying weapons to be fired on Russian targets, calling them direct participants in the two-year conflict.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Sunday’s strike on Sevastopol “barbaric” and accused Washington of “killing Russian children”.

Two of the victims were minors, Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram.

Mr. Peskov also pointed to comments by President Vladimir Putin earlier this month about arming countries to potentially strike Western targets.

“The involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences,” Mr. Peskov told reporters on Monday. “Time will tell what these will be,” he said. “Just ask my colleagues in Europe and above all in Washington, ask the press secretaries there why their government is killing Russian children,” he said.

The Foreign Ministry said it had summoned U.S. envoy Lynne Tracy. It later issued a statement saying that Washington “bears equal responsibility with the Kyiv regime for this atrocity” and the strike would “not go unpunished”.

Russia said the strike on Sunday was carried out with a U.S.-supplied ATACMS missile loaded with a cluster warhead.

Local Moscow-installed officials said the missile hit an area of the port city with sandy beaches and hotels.

Russia said 82 people including 27 children were hospitalised with injuries from the strike.

Health Minister Mikhail Murashko was quoted by TASS news agency as saying on Monday that 14 of the injured were in a serious condition.

‘Russia must leave’

At a meeting with international news agencies including AFP this month, Putin criticised the West’s delivery of long-range weapons to Ukraine.

“Why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same class to regions of the world where there will be strikes on sensitive facilities of those (Western) countries?” Putin said.

“That is, the response can be asymmetric. We will think about it,” he told reporters.

Peskov also referred back to comments by Putin that target data for Ukrainian strikes was being provided by Western countries.

Russia unilaterally annexed Crimea in 2014.

Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said on Monday: “Crimea is Ukraine.”

“Russia must leave the peninsula. Their army and military objects there must cease to exist,” he said on social media.

A senior aide to the Ukrainian president, Mykhailo Podolyak, also suggested that Crimea was a legitimate military target.

“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.

Russia has been launching deadly strikes against Ukraine on a daily basis since it began its campaign in February 2022.

Ukraine says 551 children have been killed and 1,396 injured since the start of the assault.

Moscow:

A Ukrainian missile attack Friday struck the headquarters of Moscow’s Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea, killing at least one and sparking a fire in Kyiv’s latest assault by on the peninsula. Crimea has been targeted by Ukraine throughout Russia’s offensive but attacks on military installations there have recently intensified as Kyiv vows to recapture the Black Sea peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

“The headquarters of the fleet have been hit in an enemy missile attack,” Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Crimea’s largest city Sevastopol, said on social media.

Razvozhayev said that missile fragments had fallen near a theatre and urged residents to stay clear of the site.

In a second post, he warned that another aerial attack could be imminent, urging residents of the city, which is home to more than 500,000 people, to remain indoors.

“Attention everyone! Another attack is possible. Please do not go to the city centre. Do not leave buildings,” he said. 

“Everyone who is near the headquarters of the fleet — at the sound of the siren proceed to shelters,” Razvozhayev added.

He said rescue workers were at the scene, adding: “Firefighters are taking all measures to eliminate the fire as soon as possible.”

Authorities, he said, were still determining whether anyone had been injured or killed in the attack.

Ukrainian and Russian attacks in and around the Black Sea have increased since Moscow withdrew from an accord that allowed safe passage to civilian cargo ships from three Ukrainian ports.

Ukraine has urged its allies to provide its armed forces with long-range missiles so it can target positions deeper inside Russia-controlled territory. 

Western leaders had hesitated over concerns Ukraine could target Russian territory and thereby escalate the conflict.

Both France and the United Kingdom, however, had supplied Kyiv’s forces with the weapons.

As part of the increasingly frequent barrages on Crimea, Ukraine said earlier this week it had struck a military airfield near the town of Saky.

A source in Ukraine’s SBU security service said there were at least a dozen warplanes and Pantsir missile defence systems at the airfield when the attack took place.

The airfield also housed a training centre for operators of drones that Russia uses to target Ukraine.

The SBU source said that Ukraine had deployed a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles which “overwhelmed Russian air defenses” and then launched Neptune cruise missiles.

Kyiv has also repeatedly targeted — and hit — the only bridge that connects the peninsula to the Russian mainland, on several occasions leaving damage that took weeks to repair.

The last major attack in July impacted the road section of the bridge, which can also accomodate rail traffic and is also used to transport military equipment.

Russian officials said on Friday that traffic across the bridge had been temporarily paused.

Civilian maritime traffic was stopped earlier on Friday in Sevastopol, Russian-installed authorities said, without providing details.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had shot down one guided missile and two drones that had targeted the peninsula.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

View of a damaged Russian ship following a Ukrainian missile attack on Sevastopol, Crimea September 13, 2023 in this social media image obtained by REUTERS.
| Photo Credit: VIA REUTERS

Russia said it destroyed nearly two dozen Ukrainian drones trying to hit Moscow-annexed Crimea, patrol ships in the Black Sea and border regions on Thursday.

Crimea has been targeted by Ukraine throughout Russia’s offensive but attacks there have recently intensified as Kyiv vows to recapture the Black Sea peninsula.

“At about 5.00 a.m. (0200 GMT), the Ukrainian armed forces attempted to attack the Black Sea Fleet patrol ship Sergey Kotov in the Black Sea with five unmanned sea boats,” Russia’s defence ministry said.

“While repelling the attack, five unmanned enemy boats were destroyed by fire from the ship’s standard weapons,” it added in a statement.

Moscow previously reported attempted attacks on the Sergey Kotov in July and in August.

At about 5.30 a.m. on Thursday, “air defence systems on duty destroyed 11 unmanned aerial vehicles” over the Crimean peninsula, the ministry said.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

The ministry did not say whether either attack caused any casualties or damage.

Ukraine, however, said it had destroyed an S-400 Triumph air defence missile system near Yevpatoria, a city on the western coast of Crimea.

“On September 14 overnight, the military counter-intelligence of the security service and Ukrainian navy conducted a unique special operation near Yevpatoria,” a source in Ukraine’s SBU security service told AFP.

“They destroyed a Russian air defence Triumph system,” it said.

Russia said earlier that overnight it had also destroyed several Ukrainian drones that targeted its border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod, with no casualties or damage yet reported.

The defence ministry said six drones had been shot down in four separate locations over the Bryansk region, which lies roughly halfway between Kyiv and Moscow.

Another drone was destroyed further south over the Belgorod region on Wednesday evening.

Since Ukraine launched its counter-offensive in early June, Russia has weathered waves of drone attacks that have sporadically damaged buildings, including in the capital Moscow.

Russian officials have downplayed their significance.

A Ukrainian drone was chased by two Russian combat helicopters and an airplane in the occupied territory of Crimea. A video of the dramatic chase has been posted by Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) on X (formerly Twitter) and other social media platforms. Local outlets like news agency RBC-Ukraine said that the drone was unharmed and returned to the base intact. The video, taken by the camera installed on the drone, shows a helicopter chasing the Ukrainian military asset and vanishing from the screen after sometime.

“Two enemy helicopters and a plane failed to shoot down the Ukrainian drone during a long chase,” DIU said in its post on X.

Два ворожих вертольоти та літак за час тривалої погоні так і не змогли збити український безпілотник (ВІДЕО)

https://t.co/yY4iJul8KJpic.twitter.com/w8DBlzwr5i

— Defence intelligence of Ukraine (@DI_Ukraine) September 1, 2023

According to Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, the drone was flying in the area of Cape Tarkhankut when Russia scrambled its jet and choppers.

“Some crooked hands,” it quoted the UAV operator as saying about the encounter.

This comes on a day when Russian air defences destroyed a drone approaching Moscow. “There were no casualties or damage, according to initial reports. Emergency services are on the scene,” city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.

Moscow has been targeted by a barrage of Ukrainian drone attacks in recent weeks after Kyiv vowed in July to “return” the conflict to Russia.

On Thursday, air defences in the Voskresensky district, about 60 kilometres from Moscow, destroyed a Ukrainian drone approaching the capital.

Air defences also destroyed a drone approaching Moscow on Monday, as well as two others over the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine.