Putin Shits His Pants
2024-06-24 16:41:13 UTC
Reply
PermalinkUnited States for an attack on Crimea with U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles
that killed at least four people and injured 151, and Moscow formally
warned the U.S. ambassador that retaliation would follow.
The war in Ukraine has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia
and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and Russian officials
have said that the conflict is entering the most dangerous escalatory phase
to date.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue
But directly blaming the United States for a deadly attack on Crimea -
which Russia annexed in 2014 and now considers to be Russian territory
although most of the world considers it to be part of Ukraine - is a step
further.
"You should ask my colleagues in Europe, and above all in Washington, the
press secretaries, why their governments are killing Russian children. Just
ask them this question," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters of
the attack.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue
At least two children were killed in the attack on Sevastopol on Sunday,
according to Russian officials. People were shown running from a beach near
Sevastopol and some of the injured being carried off on sun loungers.
Russia said that the United States had supplied the weapons, while U.S.
military specialists had aimed the weapons and provided data for them.
Neither Ukraine nor the United States has commented on the attack.
Russia summoned U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy to the foreign ministry where
she faced accusations that Washington was "waging a hybrid war against
Russia and has actually become a party to the conflict". The attack, Russia
told Tracy, would "not go unpunished. Retaliatory measures will definitely
follow."
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much
broader war involving the world's biggest nuclear powers, though he has
said that Russia does not want a conflict with the U.S.-led NATO alliance.
U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly ruled out sending U.S. troops to
fight in Ukraine and said shortly after the 2022 Russian invasion that a
direct confrontation between NATO and Russia would mean World War Three.
Putin presents the Ukraine war as part of a much broader struggle with the
U.S., which he says ignored Moscow's interests after the Soviet Union's
1991 break-up and then plotted to cleave Russia apart and seize its natural
resources.
Leaders of the West and Ukraine have cast the war in Ukraine as an
imperial-style land-grab. The West denies that it wants to destroy Russia,
which in turn denies that it intends to invade any NATO member state.
RETALIATION
Since the United States allowed Ukraine to use some U.S. weapons against
Russia, and Britain suggested Kyiv could do the same with British weapons,
the Kremlin has sent several signals that it views the moves as a serious
escalation.
Putin ordered drills to practise the deployment of tactical nuclear
weapons, suggested Russia could deploy conventional missiles in striking
distance of the United States and its allies, and sealed a mutual defence
pact with North Korea.
Washington still prohibits Kyiv from striking Russia with ATACMS, which
have a range of up to 186 miles (300 km), and other long-range U.S.-
supplied weapons.
Putin said on Thursday that Russia might supply weapons to North Korea in
what he suggested would be a mirror response to the Western arming of
Ukraine.
Asked what the Russian response would be to the attack in Crimea, Peskov
recalled Putin's words on June 6 about supplying conventional weapons to
regions near to the U.S. and its allies.
"Of course, the involvement of the United States in the fighting, as a
result of which peaceful Russians are dying, cannot but have
consequences," Peskov said.
"Which ones exactly - time will tell."
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-blames-us-barbaric-atacms-
missile-attack-crimea-2024-06-24/