First Putin Administration Statement
As this publication reported this morning, Ukraine carried out its largest drone strike on the Russian Federation since the war began. Between 1800 and 2200 EST on May 16th, 2024, the Ukrainian military launched at least 100 aerial drones and six naval drones against Sevastopol Crimea and Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai.
While civil officials in Crimea commented on the damages, the Russian national government such as the Defense Ministry and the Presidential Administration have made no comment on the strike. The Russian Defense Ministry only provided an operational roll-up of the strikes, covered in our initial post.
The Statement
However, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zakharova has broken that silence by warning “Washington, London, and Brussels” that there will be consequences for the use of Western weapons on Russian soil. Her full statement reads below:
“On May 16 and 17, the Kiev neo-Nazi regime attempted another massive attack using aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned boats on Crimea, the Krasnodar Territory and other Russian regions. Russian air defense forces destroyed and intercepted more than a hundred UAVs. Naval aviation and patrol boats of the Black Sea Fleet eliminated six unmanned boats. Earlier this week, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported the destruction of two dozen US-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles, over 130 missiles, including US-made HIMARS and Czech-made Vampire, more than twenty French-made Hammer guided bombs and four made Storm Shadow cruise missiles Britain. Behind these barbaric attacks using Western weapons, the profile of the American and British curators of the Zelensky regime clearly emerges. They not only supply him with increasingly long-range missiles and heavy weapons, but also give the go-ahead for their use against Russia, thereby contributing to the further escalation of the conflict. The Bandera clique seems to have believed in its impunity against the backdrop of the recent increase in the frequency of trips to Kyiv by Western emissaries. Once again we would like to unequivocally warn Washington, London, Brussels, other Western capitals, as well as Kyiv, which they control, that they are playing with fire. Russia will not leave such encroachments on its territory unanswered.”
This is the first Russian claim that Western weapons were used in the strike.