Moscow [Russia], July 17: Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to retaliate with cluster bombs if Ukraine uses the US-supplied munitions against his forces, according to a television clip released by Russian state television on Sunday.
Russian forces repelled a coordinated attack by nine Ukrainian drones on the Crimean peninsula on Sunday morning, according to the authorities in Moscow.
"This morning, the Kiev regime's attempt to carry out a terrorist attack was thwarted," the ministry wrote on Telegram. No one was injured in the attack, it said.
Putin issued a warning to Ukraine not to deploy the largely internationally outlawed cluster munitions that were shipped recently by the United States. "I want to say that Russia has sufficient reserves of various types of cluster munitions," Putin said in a video clip released by Russian state TV.
Russia did not want to use this resource, he added. "But of course, if it is used against us, then we reserve the right to take congruent actions." Human rights activists accuse Russian and Ukrainian forces of already using cluster bombs. Putin denied this, even though he admitted that for a time there was a "known shortage of the ammunition" on the Russian side.
The bombs, which explode above the ground, spread projectiles over a wide area. Because many of them often do not explode immediately, they, like mines, pose a danger to civilians even after hostilities have ended. A total of 111 countries have outlawed cluster bombs under an international treaty, but the US, Ukraine and Russia have not signed that treaty.
Ukraine can potentially use the munitions to help clear extensive Russian defensive positions in its ongoing counteroffensive to retake its territories in the east and south.
One vector of the operations is towards Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in March 2014. Home to Russia's Black Sea fleet, which is based out of the port Sevastopol, of it has been frequently targeted by Ukrainian drones, including explosives-laden maritime drones. On Sunday, the governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, also confirmed on Telegram that a new "massive and sustained" drone attack on the port city was suppressed.
"Now it is calm in the city," Razvozhayev wrote, adding that no sites were damaged in the city or in the bays around Sevastopol. Three weeks after the Wagner mercenary force's brief rebellion against the Russian military leadership failed, the group's future activities are now taking shape, according to British intelligence. "The Russian security apparatus entered a period of confusion and negotiations after Wagner Group's 24 June 2023 mutiny," the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London wrote on Twitter on Sunday in its daily update, citing British intelligence reports.
"In recent days, an interim arrangement for the future of the group has started to take shape," it said. Since Saturday, "at least a small contingent" of Wagner fighters reportedly arrived at a camp in Belarus, while some groups close to Wagner had resumed their activity on social media. The focus, these commentators said, was on highlighting the group's activities in Africa.
Source: Qatar Tribune