Moscow has persistently claimed that it is effectively fighting a proxy war with the West.

Russia has summoned the US ambassador over a “barbaric” missile attack that hit a beach in Crimea, killing at least four, including children, and injuring 151.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow said on Monday that it had summoned Ambassador Lynne Tracy to tell her that it directly blames the United States for Sunday’s missile attack close to the city of Sevastopol. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 Moscow has persistently claimed that it is effectively fighting a proxy war with the West.

A recent decision by the US allowing Ukraine to use weapons it supplies on targets inside Russian territory risks escalation and will incur “consequences”, the Kremlin said.

The Ukrainian attack on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula was conducted with five US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles, the Russian Ministry of Defence said on Sunday.

It added that four had been shot down and that a fifth had detonated in midair. The ministry claimed that US specialists had set the missiles’ flight coordinates on the basis of information from US spy satellites. There has been no response from the US, which began supplying Ukraine with the missiles earlier this year.

“Such actions by Washington… will not be left without response,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday as it summoned the ambassador. “There will definitely be response measures.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the attack “absolutely barbaric” and said in a news conference on Monday that Moscow would react to the US involvement.

“You should ask my colleagues in Europe, and above all in Washington … why their governments are killing Russian children,” he suggested to reporters present.

‘Consequences’

Peskov also referred to comments by President Vladimir Putin about arming countries to potentially launch strikes on Western targets.

Last week he agreed a military alliance pact with North Korea, causing alarm among Western allies.

Russian officials have recently warned that the Ukraine war is entering its most dangerous phase to date. Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much broader war involving the world’s nuclear powers.

But directly blaming the US for a deadly attack on Crimea – which Russia annexed in 2014 and now considers to be Russian territory although most of the world considers it to be part of Ukraine – is a step further.

“We perfectly understand who is behind this,” Peskov said, adding that it was clear who supplied weapons to Ukraine, aimed them and provided data for them.

“Of course, the involvement of the United States in the fighting, as a result of which peaceful Russians are dying, cannot but have consequences,” Peskov said. “Which ones exactly – time will tell”.