Russia said on Sunday that the United States was responsible for a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula with five U.S.-supplied missiles that killed four people, including two children, and injured 151 more.
The Russian Defence Ministry said four of the U.S.-delivered Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles, equipped with cluster warheads, were shot down by air defence systems and the ammunition of a fifth had detonated in mid-air.
Footage on Russian state television showed people running from a beach and some people being carried off on sun loungers.
Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said missile fragments had fallen just after noon near a beach on the north side of the city of Sevastopol where locals were on holiday.
The incident generated a furious reaction among Russian public figures.
The Defence ministry said U.S. specialists had set the missiles’ flight coordinates on the basis of information from U.S. spy satellites, meaning Washington was directly responsible.
“Responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on the civilians of Sevastopol is borne above all by Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, and by the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this strike was carried out,” the ministry said.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and now views the Black Sea peninsula it as an integral part of its territory, though most of the world considers it still part of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, in what he cast as a defensive move against a hostile and aggressive West. Ukraine and the West say Russia is waging an imperial-style war.
The United States began supplying Ukraine with longer range ATACMS missiles, which have a 300-kilometre (186-mile) range, earlier this year.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield reports from either side.