Ukraine attacked Crimea with US ATACMS missiles: Russia

MOSCOW: Russian officials said on Tuesday that Ukraine had attacked Crimea with U.S.-produced Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) in an attempt to pierce Russian air defences of the annexed peninsula but that six had been shot down.

Washington secretly shipped the long-range missiles to Kyiv as part of a $300 million military aid package for Ukraine that U.S. President Joe Biden approved on March 12, a U.S. official said last week.

Whether to send the ATACMS missiles with a range up to 300 km was a subject of debate within the Biden administration for months. Mid-range ATACMS were supplied last September.

The Russian Defence Ministry said six ATACMS had been shot down but it did not say where. Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-backed head of Crimea, said ATACMS missiles were shot down over the peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

“Ten Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, six ATACMS tactical missiles manufactured by the United States and two guided ‘Hammer’ aircraft bombs manufactured by France were shot down by air defences,” the ministry said.

Russian lawmaker Leonid Ivlev, who once served in the Soviet Air Force, said Ukraine struck at airbases in Crimea with 12 ATACMS, and added that attacks could increase ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration for a new term next week.

“Their target is airfields. The missiles were destroyed by air defences,” Ivlev told RIA news agency. He said Ukraine was trying to pierce the air defence shield over Crimea to then strike at strategically important facilities.

“I admit that as the May holidays approach, as well as the inauguration of the president of Russia, new attempts to attack the peninsula are possible,” Ivlev was quoted as saying.

The influential pro-Russian Rybar Telegram channel said 30 such missiles had been fired at Crimea in recent days.

Ukraine overnight fired eight missiles at the Dzhankoy airbase and four at the airfield in Gvardeyskoye. It said the missiles were launched from the Kherson region.

Aksyonov posted on Telegram a photo showing what he described as undetonated submunitions of ATACMS missiles without specifying how many missiles had been shot down.

The ATACMS missiles were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, launched against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian front lines, a U.S. official told Reuters in Washington.

The Pentagon initially opposed the long-range missile deployment, fearing the loss of the missiles from the American stockpile would hurt U.S. military readiness. There were also concerns that Ukraine would use them to attack targets deep inside Russia, a step which could lead to an escalation of the war towards a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States.

Meanwhile, a Russian missile attack on an educational institution in a popular seafront park in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa on Monday killed at least five people and injured 32, local officials said.

Regional governor Oleh Kiper, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said that in addition to those killed in the attack, one man died after suffering a stroke attributed to the strike.

Kiper saideight of the injured were in serious condition, including a 4-year-old child. Among the injured were another child and a pregnant woman.

Reuters Television footage showed the roof of the ornate building, a private law academy, all but destroyed after the strike. Firefighters were directing water on small fires still burning.

“Monsters. Beasts. Savages. Scum. I don’t know what else to say,” Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov said in a video posted on Telegram. “People are going for a walk by the sea and they are shooting and killing.”

Pictures posted earlier online showed the building ablaze and smoke billowing skyward.

Video footage, which could not be immediately verified, showed people receiving treatment on the street alongside pools of blood. One photo showed officials examining part of a missile.

A student at the academy who identified herself by her first name, Maria, said the blaze was caused when the missile was intercepted.

“In front of my eyes, a missile was shot down, this was just in front of me. My doors were blown open and the glass was shaking. And then I saw this,” she told Reuters, pointing to the burning building.

“Just before this happened, we wanted to go down there for a walk, but thank God we weren’t there when it happened.”

Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk, in a posting on a military Telegram channel, said the strike was conducted by an Iskander-M ballistic missile with a cluster warhead.

Public broadcaster Suspilne said the academy’s president, a prominent former member of parliament, Serhiy Kivalov, was among the injured.

Odesa has been a frequent target of Russian missile and drone attacks, particular port infrastructure.