The death toll from the attack on Belgorod continues to rise as doctors fight for the lives of civilians gravely injured during Saturday’s brazen daylight attack on the city center.
The Russian military made good on a promise to retaliate, with the MoD reporting Sunday that its forces had launched missile strikes against Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate, Ukrainian Security Service, military and mercenary targets in Kharkov, Khmelnytsky and Zaporozhye.
Kraken militants were among the forces targeted during Russia’s retaliatory attacks, the MoD said.
“There will also be a response to all crimes. Ukraine will continue to be strengthened, our defense industry will become more powerful,” Ukrainian Presidential Office head Andrii Yermak wrote in a cryptic social media post Saturday night, just hours after the Belgorod attack, perhaps referring to the fact that the Vilkha missile launcher believed to have been used to target the city is a Ukrainian-made weapons system. Ukrainian and Western media assured that the Belgorod strikes were aimed only at “military targets,” and that they were a retaliation to Friday’s massed Russian airstrikes across the country.
“The Ukrainians claim to fire against military targets, but the use of cluster munitions and the targets they hit…indicate that this was a clear-cut case of the indiscriminate use of military weapons against exclusively civilian targets – a war crime in the extreme,” Scott Ritter told Sputnik in a video commentary responding to Saturday’s cluster bomb attack on Belgorod.
“The timing of this, on the eve of a New Year - one of the most widely celebrated holidays in Russia, I think is designed to be both a psychological blow against the Russian people, and in striking such a blow to generate some sort of reaction by the Russian government that would allow Ukraine to create the case or restate the case to their Western allies for the need for continued financial and military support,” the former Marine and UN weapons inspector explained.
“To date, the Russian government has shown an ability to be very mature in their response, not to overreact. Russia has said that it will retaliate against those responsible in a time and place of their choosing. But the bottom line is, as we go into the new year, we see Ukraine becoming increasingly desperate. They’re being abandoned by the West and they’re doing their best to create some sort of catastrophic event that can recapture the imagination of the West, but to no avail,” Ritter stressed.
As for Kiev’s motive, Ritter believes it’s simple.
“The purpose of this appears to be purely revenge. The day before, Russia had struck exclusively military targets in one of the largest-ever drone and missile barrages since the special military operation began. It embarrassed Ukraine, it showed that their defenses were totally inadequate and also sent a signal to the collective West that continuing to supply Ukraine with arms and munitions would be met with a Russian response. The Ukrainian response was to target Russian civilians,” he said.
Russia’s strikes Friday involved the use of over 120 ballistic and cruise missiles and dozens of drones, with the attacks targeting energy facilities, military airfields, ports, fuel terminals, military headquarters and ammunition depots, including a depot containing long-range cruise missiles sent to Kiev by the UK and France.