Ukraine war: Putin’s aide warns of ‘retaliation’ after US-missile attack on Crimea

Over the years, Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan, located in the North Caucasus region, has been beset by extremist violence. This weekend, there was more bloodshed.

Officials say five gunmen in the regional capital of Makhachkala and the city of Derbent opened fire at Orthodox churches and two synagogues, as well as a police post, killing at least 20 people before being slain by authorities.

A look at the volatile region:

Dagestan, which sits in the North Caucasus between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea, is known as one of Russia’s most diverse — but volatile — regions.

There are more than 30 recognised ethnic groups and 13 local languages granted special status alongside Russian.

It has been blighted by violence since the early 2000s, when militant insurgents taking part in separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya were pushed into the region as a result of pressure from Russian security forces and iron-fisted Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

The volume of Western military assistance reaching Ukraine will not be at a scale that can change the frontline dynamics till late July, Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov said in an interview.

He noted that the US and European weapons deliveries, including artillery ammunition, are arriving in Ukraine at a faster pace than several months ago but Ukrainian forces need a high volume of weapons and “there is a question of volume.”

“No Armageddon will emerge [on the frontline]” but that the frontline situation will remain difficult for at least one month, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, the Russian forces are “attempting to make tactically and operationally significant gains before US military assistance arrives to Ukrainian forces at the frontline at scale, and that the initial arrival of Western-provided weaponry will take some time to have tactical to operational effect on the frontline”.

Russia’s foreign ministry summoned US ambassador Lynne Tracy yesterday and told her Washington was “waging a hybrid war against Russia and has actually become a party to the conflict”.

“Retaliatory measures will definitely follow,” the ministry said.

Ms Tracy said Washington regretted any loss to civilian life, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters, adding that Washington provided weapons to Ukraine so it could defend its sovereign territory, including Crimea.

Pentagon spokesperson Major Charlie Dietz said that “Ukraine makes its own targeting decisions and conducts its own military operations.”

The Kremlin pinned the blame on the United States for an attack on Crimea with US-supplied ATACMS missiles that killed at least four people and injured 151, and Moscow formally warned the U.S. ambassador that retaliation would follow.

“You should ask my colleagues in Europe, and above all in Washington, the press secretaries, why their governments are killing Russian children,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He has not acknowledged Russian strikes that have claimed the lives of more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians in Russia’s invasion since February 2022. The death toll also includes more than 500 children.

“Retaliatory measures will definitely follow,” he said.

At least two children were killed in the attack on Sevastopol on Sunday, according to Russian officials. People were shown running from a beach near Sevastopol and some of the injured being carried off on sun loungers. Kyiv did not comment on the attack but denies targeting civilians.

At least 29 Ukrainian-launched drones have been drowned by Russia’s air defence systems in an overnight aerial assault, the Russian defence ministry claimed this morning.

“Air defence systems on duty intercepted and destroyed 29 UAVs over the territory of the Belgorod region and destroyed one UAV over the territory of the Voronezh region,” it claimed on Telegram channel, blaming “Kyiv regime”.

No immediate casualties have been reported so far.

The European Union will open membership talks with Ukraine today, giving the country a political boost in the midst of its war against Russia’s invasion, although a long and tough road still lies ahead before it could join the bloc.

The ceremony in Luxembourg will be more about symbolism than the nitty-gritty of negotiations, which will start in earnest only after the EU has screened reams of Ukrainian legislation to assess all the reforms needed to meet the bloc’s standards.

Ihor Zhovkva, foreign policy adviser to president Volodymyr Zelensky, said it would give Ukrainians morale a big lift. “It is very important,” he told Reuters in an interview in Kyiv. “The path to full-fledged membership, which Ukraine deserves … is irreversible.”

By marking the start of talks with Ukraine, and with its neighbour Moldova later in the day, the EU is signalling that both countries are on a path away from Russian influence and towards greater integration with the West.

The moment will be poignant for many Ukrainians, who trace their current conflict with Moscow back to the Maidan uprising of 2014, when protesters toppled a pro-Russian president who reneged on a pledge to develop closer ties with the EU.

Top North Korean military officials criticised the United States on Monday for its expanding military assistance to Ukraine and warned of a “new world war”.

North Korea‘s vice minister of defence, Kim Kang Il, said the U.S. sending an aircraft carrier to the Korean peninsula was a “very dangerous” show of force, leaving doors open for North Korea‘s “overwhelming, new demonstration of deterrence,” state media KCNA reported.

A nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier, the Theodore Roosevelt, arrived in the South Korean port city of Busan on Saturday to take part in joint military exercises later this month with the host nation and Japan, naval officials said.

Just days after Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang, Pak Jong Chon, one of North Korea‘s top military officials, said Moscow had the “right to opt for any kind of retaliatory strike” if Washington kept pushing Ukraine to a “proxy war” against Russia.

It could provoke a stronger response from Moscow, and a “new world war”, Pak said, according to KCNA.

Four people were injured and scores of buildings damaged in multiple attacks by Ukraine on the Belgorod region, the governor of the southern Russian region that borders Ukraine said today.

At least six Ukraine-launched drones were destroyed over the Yakovlevsky district in the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the region said on Telegram. Two people were injured there with shrapnel wounds, he added.

Another person was injured after a drone was downed over the city of Belgorod, which is the administrative centre of the Belgorod region, and another woman was injured in one of the region’s villages, Gladkov said.

He said that scores of buildings and cars across the region were damaged.

He said on Telegram: “And, of course, the agency must be cleared of anyone who chooses not Ukraine for themselves or discredits the state guard service.” The guard service provides security for various governement officials.

The US is expected to announce an additional package of $150m in critically needed munitions to Ukraine today, two US officials said.

The upcoming shipment is expected to include munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS. The air defence system is capable of firing the longer-range missiles from the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, which Russia has said would prompt retaliation and risk escalating the conflict. One of the US officials said they could not verify whether this aid package included ATACMS munitions, but said the aid did not include cluster munitions.

The package also includes anti-armour weapons, small arms and grenades and the highly sought-after 155 mm and 105 mm artillery rounds, among other support.

The continued flow of US munitions, which will be drawn from existing stockpiles, is intended to help Ukrainian forces repel intensified Russian attacks.

This comes at a time Moscow is accuses Ukraine of using US-provided munitions to strike inside Russia or Russian-held territory.