Pentagon says Ukraine made its own targeting decisions after Crimea attack

[ad_1]

The Pentagon said on Monday that Ukraine would decide on its own targets after the Kremlin directly accused the United States of an attack on Crimea that the Kremlin said was carried out using US-supplied ATACMS missiles, killing at least four people and injuring 151.

The war in Ukraine has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and Russian officials say the conflict is entering its most dangerous phase of escalation yet.

But it goes further to directly accuse the United States of carrying out the deadly attack in Crimea — which Russia annexed in 2014 and now considers Russian territory but most of the world considers it part of Ukraine.

“Ukraine determines its own targets and conducts its own military operations,” said Maj. Charlie Dietz, a Pentagon spokesman.

A spokesman for the White House National Security Council said any civilian casualties were a tragedy.

“This of course includes the thousands of innocent Ukrainians who have been killed by Russian forces since the start of Russia’s war of aggression,” the spokesman said.

At least two children were killed in the attack in Sevastopol on Sunday, according to Russian officials. Videos showed people fleeing from a beach near Sevastopol, with some of the wounded being carried away on deckchairs.

Russia says the weapons were provided by the United States, while American military experts aimed and provided data for the weapons.

The Pentagon said on June 20 that Ukraine could use U.S.-supplied weapons to strike Russian forces firing at Ukrainian troops anywhere along the Russian border, not just on Russian territory near Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.

“You should ask my colleagues in Europe, especially the press secretaries in Washington, why their governments are killing Russian children,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Russia summoned US Ambassador Lynne Tracy to the Foreign Ministry, accusing Washington of “waging a hybrid war against Russia and having de facto become a party to the conflict”.

Russia told Tracy that the attack “will not go unpunished. There will definitely be retaliatory measures.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that Tracy said Washington regretted the civilian casualties, adding that Washington provides weapons to Ukraine so that it can defend its sovereign territories, including Crimea.

Russia is reportedly discussing the deployment of long-range weapons with its closest partners in response to the NATO ally allowing Ukraine to use the weapons to attack Russian territory.