Russia Contemplating Bombing Ukraine Over Civilian Death

Russia claims that Ukraine’s war with
Russian-backed militias yesterday spilled over into Russia itself,
and that at least one civilian was killed and several injured due
to an errant shell. Now, according to Russian media, some leaders
in Moscow want to bomb Ukraine in retaliation.

The independent paper Kommersant reports:

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow “considers
this provocation as another act of aggression from Ukraine against
sovereign territory of Russia and Russian citizens.” The
ministry warned: “The incident indicates an extremely dangerous
escalation of tensions in the Russian-Ukrainian border and may have
irreversible consequences, the responsibility for which lies on the
Ukrainian side.”

A source close to the Kremlin, told Kommersant that
Moscow is considering “launching pinpoint retaliation” on the
Ukrainian territory. According to him, the Russian side “knows
exactly where the fire. “Our patience is not unlimited,” said the
[unnamed source]. He, however, specifies that it is not about a
large-scale action, and exclusively about targeted attacks on
individual positions, where is the fire on Russian territory.

A Russian government-owned publication, RIA Novosti,
spoke to a deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament,
Yevgeniy Bushmin, who expressed a similar sentiment. “The only way
to fight against this is like civilized countries do, namely the
U.S. and the E.U. We should use precision weapons, as Israel does,
to destroy those who fired this shell,” he
said.

Although the Ukrainian government denies firing into Russia, a
national security spokesman
acknowledged that Ukrainian forces did fire in that direction,
because they were resisting a “massive artillery strike” that was
facilitating “the passage of a major mercenary force into Ukrainian
territory” that numbered “around 100 units of armed vehicles and
trucks.” The spokesman said that Russia is deliberately escalating
the conflict and that the pro-Russian fighters are responsible for
the killing.

Likewise, Ukraine’s president
said this weekend that “in the past three days a new Russian
missile system has been used against the armed forces
of Ukraine” and that “information has also been confirmed that
Russian staff officers are taking part in military operations
against Ukrainian forces.” 

President Obama
spoke with the U.K.’s David Cameron about the crisis, demanding
that Russia rein in its fighters and support a ceasefire. The White
House issued a statement saying that “so far, neither
the United States nor the United Kingdom have seen
progress on complying with these conditions,” and that both
countries may “take further coordinated measures to impose costs on
Russia if it does not take immediate steps toward
de-escalation.”