Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 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 range, earlier this year.

Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield reports from either side.

Treating the injured

Russian-installed Sevastopol Governor Mihail Razvozhaev put the death toll at four, with 144 injured, including 82 taken to hospitals. Twenty-seven children were among the injured.

Specialist doctors were being flown in from other parts of Russia.

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Russia will respond to Sunday’s attack, the Defence Ministry said, without elaborating. The Kremlin said Putin had been “in constant contact with the military” since the attack.

Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council and a leading voice among Russian hawks, described the incident as “a vile, despicable act against our people”.

He likened it to attacks carried out by gunmen on Sunday against a synagogue, a church and police post in Dagestan and said there was “no difference to us” between the US administration, Ukrainian leaders and “crazy fanatics”.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a prominent supporter of the invasion, said there “was no justification whatsoever for a missile strike on civilians” and expressed indignation that the incident occurred on the Orthodox holiday of Trinity.

Neither Ukraine nor the United States has commented on the attack, which came on a day when Ukraine said one person had been killed and 10 others wounded by Russian strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Putin has repeatedly accused the US of using Ukraine to undermine Russia’s own security, which Kyiv and its Western allies deny, and has warned of growing risks of a direct confrontation between Moscow and the US-led NATO alliance.

Reuters