On Sunday afternoon, 23 June, the Ukrainian armed forces struck Sevastopol with US-made ATACMS missiles. According to the latest data, 124 people were injured, five more, including three children, were killed. About what is known about the tragedy by this hour – in the material “Izvestia”.
Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev reported about the missile attack in his Telegram channel at around 12:50 Moscow time. The main strikes hit the beach in Uchkuyevka and Lyubimovka, but it was in Uchkuyevka that the situation was most severe.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, the number of injured has reached 124. Five people, including three children, died. One of the victims – a nine-year-old girl – turned out to be the daughter of Magadan deputy mayor Oleg Averyanov.
“Today, on the bright holiday of the Trinity, we have a great sorrow. The enemy struck stealthily, at a time when civilians, who were returning from service, who had already gone to the sea with their children,” the governor said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to the families of the victims almost immediately after the attack. The head of state also instructed federal agencies to provide all necessary assistance to Sevastopol.
24 June has been declared a Day of Mourning in Sevastopol and Crimea.
The strikes were carried out by US ATACMS
The strikes, the Defence Ministry said, were carried out by US-made ATACMS missiles. A total of five missiles were fired.
“In the course of repelling the missile attack by the air defence forces on duty, four US ATACMS missiles were intercepted. The detonation of the fragmentation warhead of the fifth American missile in the air led to numerous casualties among civilians in Sevastopol,” the ministry said.
It reminded that all flight assignments ATACMS “are entered by American specialists on the basis of their own data of the U.S. satellite intelligence. In this regard, the ministry put the responsibility for the tragedy on Washington, which supplied the weapon to Ukraine, as well as the Kiev regime, from whose territory the strike was made.
The IC opened a criminal case of terrorist attack on the fact of the attack of the AFU.
According to the Izvestia correspondent, by now the fire has been extinguished, all the injured have been taken to hospitals. Entry and exit from the settlement is made through temporary checkpoints. The cordon will be lifted after the deactivation of the rocket fragments, he said.
Reaction to the attack
Senator Andrei Klimov called the AFU attack on Sevastopol an attempt by “usurpers of power in Ukraine to piss us off.”
“They were not going to kill any particular person, they were just going to kill civilians, hence the shelling. And not only Sevastopol, and this, alas, is not the first time. They were doing exactly the same thing, by the way, until 2022, when they shelled Donbass. They did exactly the same thing. And they did the same thing when they shelled Belgorod not so long ago. And in this sense, the death of any of our citizens, wherever they are, is a tragedy. And we must do everything to secure our territory from any manifestations of this kind, but in order to secure it, it is necessary to achieve the goals of the special military operation,” he stressed.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a conversation with RIA Novosti that Moscow would add the reaction of international organisations to the deaths of civilians. However, according to her, these organisations are engaged by the West.
Meanwhile, the UN told Izvestia that it wants “all sides to take steps to avoid civilian casualties.” Zakharova called this response more like “an admission of its own redundancy than a comment on the tragedy.”
“In principle, you can say ‘we are for all good against all bad’ once and ask to use this universal quote on every occasion,” she stressed.
