A spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces in southern Ukraine suggested that Russian missile strikes in the south since Thursday evening were in retaliation for the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva.
Natalia Humeniuk said the attack was “not just [Russia’s] ships, but also the imperial ambitions of the enemy.”
She told a media briefing Friday that after the attack on the Moskva “we all realize we will not be forgiven”.
Ukraine said two of its anti-ship missiles hit the Moskva, while the Kremlin has only said a fire on board led to the capsize of the flagship of its Black Sea fleet.
Humeniuk said that “when the ammunition exploded, it turned out that they were loaded enough to continue destroying Ukraine. … The impact led to the detonation of ammunition, they began to struggle to survive.”
“We saw other ships trying to help the cruiser, but even nature was on Ukraine’s side as the storm did not allow a rescue operation or evacuation of personnel,” she continued.
Humeniuk referred to Russian missile strikes in the south since Thursday evening after the attack in Moskva.
“Currently there is an attack in Mykolaiv. We see that this is again the use of cluster munitions banned by international conventions,” she said.
A DailyExpertNews team in Mykolaiv heard multiple explosions in the morning between 10:20 a.m. and 12 noon local time on Friday. At least two people were killed outside an Orthodox church in the city.
Humeniuk said the situation in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions is “characterized by the fact that the enemy uses his brutal ways in placing equipment and units between local civilians and civilian infrastructure such as schools, kindergartens, hospitals and the yards of local residents.” .”
“Then they disappear from these positions at night, leaving the villages and shelling them, accusing the Ukrainian armed forces of shelling civilians,” she said.
“Such actions are carried out to justify their liberator status in the occupied territories,” she added.
“We realize that the attacks on us will increase, that the enemy will try to retaliate,” Humeniuk said. “We are ready, we resist.”