For the past 10 years, Russia has been committing acts of aggression against Ukraine. However, it is Russia that has repeatedly accused Ukraine terrorism, accusing the country of being behind the terrorist attack on the Crocus Hall, despite Islamist fighters taking responsibility for the atrocity. Now, Russia is also blaming Ukraine for the missile attack on the beach in Sevastopol, Crimea, despite the fact that the Russian occupational governor of the city admitted that the downed missile on the beach was targeting a completely different place. Ukraine has been blamed for attacking churches and synagogues in the Russian autonomous republic of Dagestan. This continued blaming of Ukraine has become a drag even for Ukraine’s big opponent Dmitry Rogozin, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and Director of Roscosmos, writes Truthmeter.mk.
Under the content-sharing agreement between Truthmeter.mk and Meta.mk, we republish the text in full below:
A post on Facebook makes the following accusations:
Yesterday, Ukrainians carried out a terrorist attack. A Ukrainian missile attack on a recreational beach in Crimea and a terrorist attack on a church in Derbent.
Regarding the first accusation: It is true that on June 23, 2024, Ukraine launched an attack with five missiles on Sevastopol in Crimea, something it has been doing for a long time in response to Russian aggression. Unfortunately, during this attack, four people were killed and 153 were injured on Uchkuyevka Beach. However, on the same day, at 11:23 AM, the most powerful Russian media outlet, TASS, reported the following statement from the Russian occupation governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev, originally from Siberia:
The interception of the missile attack is complete. According to the available information, five aerial targets were destroyed over the waters. However, fragments of the hit targets fell in the coastal zone.
At 1:01 PM, TASS published a more detailed report on the event, which included the following:
Air defense systems shot down four ATACMS missiles, and another missile deviated from its flight trajectory during the interception and exploded over the city.
The incident occurred due to the poor performance of the Russian air defense system (PVO), this case being far from the first time PVO has performed poorly. As a result, one of the missiles was hit, thereby redirecting it to the beach so that finally the missile exploded and threw away its fragments.
However, the beach was not the intended target of that attack. Ukraine would not waste million-dollar missiles, which it received from the US with great difficulty, to kill four visitors on a beach, especially on its own territory. Without diminishing the tragedy, it must be said that among the victims were tourists from Russia, who should not be vacationing in a war zone.
In response to the incident, Ukrainian politician Mykhailo Podolyak stated:
There are no and cannot be any ‘beaches,’ ‘tourist zones,’ or other fictitious signs of ‘peaceful life’ in Crimea. Crimea is unequivocally a territory occupied by Russia, where combat actions are taking place, and a real war is ongoing. This is the same war that Russia started with genocidal and irredentist aims.
Crimea is also a large military base and depot, with hundreds of military targets, which the Russians cynically try to mask and shield with their own citizens, who, in a way, are civilian occupiers.
Instead of admitting that it is waging war and declaring it, Russia hides behind the euphemism “special military operation” and does not declare martial law. Instead, it invites its tourists and settlers to Crimea, exposing them to risk, and they themselves show irresponsibility. The 9-year old daughter of the Deputy Mayor of Magadan, Oleg Averyanov was killed on the beach. Magadan is a city on the Pacific coast of Russia, 7,000 km from Sevastopol. Averyanov had no good reason to go there on holiday in a military zone. In such a zone, especially under the control of a superpower like Russia, sirens and shelters have to be present, but it is unclear if they were. Tourists died because of Putin’s war and his (and their) inability to admit the war is going on. The same is true of the post we are fact-checking that mentions recreation, tourism, sport events and other things that have no place in the middle of a war.
The headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and Airport Belbek are located in Sevastopol and likely were the actual targets of the attack. Despite this, Russian media claimed without a shred of evidence that Ukraine was deliberately striking civilian targets. According to the Russians, the missile that they unintentionally redirected to the beach was flying towards a civilian target, but, unsurprisingly, they do not specify which one.
Ukraine is not the one undertaking terrorist actions against Russia. It is Russia that started its aggression against Ukraine – that is the actual act of terrorism in this story. As a result, Ukraine targets Russian sites both in occupied territories and within Russia, aiming at refineries, airports, ports, warehouses, and weapons factories, with minimal civilian casualties.
Regarding the second accusation, it is true that on June 23, 2024, terrorist attacks occurred in the cities of Makhachkala and Derbent in Dagestan. However, Abdulhakim Gadzhiev, a deputy from that autonomous republic of the Russian Federation, blamed Ukraine but offered no evidence.
The constant blaming of Ukraine has bored even its greatest adversary Dmitry Rogozin, former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, its representative to NATO, and director of the space research company Roscosmos. He even symbolically participated in the war in Ukraine and was wounded during an attack on Donetsk. Now, he is a senator for the Zaporizhzhia region, which Russia has annexed. He responded to Gadzhiev by saying:
I think that if we attribute every terrorist attack based on national and religious intolerance, hatred, and Russophobia to the machinations of Ukraine and NATO, then that rosy cloud will lead us to big problems. We see the speck in our neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in our own. It’s time to see it.
Dagestan has been a crisis hotspot since 1999, when Russians fought against the neighboring Chechen Islamists (Dagestan was also a point of crisis when it fighting for liberty from the Russian Empire). Russian authorities assume that the perpetrators of the latest attacks were also Islamists, including the son of Magomed Omarov, a Dagestani politician from Putin’s party, as well as, allegedly, mixed martial arts fighter Gadzhimurad Kagirov. Ukrainians are not mentioned and Gadzhiev’s assessment is not generally accepted across Russia.
Considering all of the above-mentioned, we believe that the post fact-checked is missing context.
