Russia’s Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov, yesterday claimed that the media and the U.S. government are “whipping up hysterics” over the deadly missile incident at Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, but the “reality is that the incident with the destroyed hospital, which happened on the eve of a NATO summit in Washington, was apparently taken by Kyiv’s backers as a ‘perfect gift’ to justify further escalation of the conflict and continuation of hostilities to the last Ukrainian.” Antonov found it notable that American media were not even reporting the assessment, or even the existence, of the Russian Defense Ministry report, that the hospital was hit by a missile from a Ukrainian air-defense system stationed within Kyiv.
Today, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia “does not strike civilian targets” and that all strikes carried out by the Russian military are exclusively aimed at “critical infrastructure facilities and military targets that are somehow related to the regime’s military potential.” Peskov cited the official statement by the Russian Defense Ministry, which “absolutely rules out that there were strikes on any civilian targets. It states that we are talking about the fall of an anti-missile…. Numerous published photos and video footage from Kyiv clearly confirm the fact of destruction due to the fall of a Ukrainian air defense missile launched from an anti-aircraft missile system within the city.”
He reminded the press, according to RT, that Kyiv had attempted similar “hysterics” in the past, fortuitously timed for large international summits, such as the NATO gathering today in Washington. The use of such “bloody shirts” and the conditioning of the Western alliance to continue funding and arms was clearly conveyed.
