The Russian Defense Ministry says that the weapons were shipped to Ukraine from the US and Europe
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it struck a storage of foreign weapons at a military airfield near the Black Sea port of Odessa in Ukraine.
Russian supersonic Oniks missiles destroyed a hangar with “weapons and ammunition received from the US and European states,” Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov told a daily press briefing. He added that a runway was destroyed as well.
The ministry also released a video of what it said was the missile launch. It wasn’t immediately clear when exactly it took place, but the Odessa regional governor, Maxim Marchenko, claimed on Saturday that a Russian “Bastion missile, launched from Crimea,” destroyed the runway at a newly constructed Odessa airport.
Konashenkov also told the briefing that seven Ukrainian military targets were hit by airstrikes, including two S-300 air defense missile batteries near the cities of Zaporozhye and Artemovsk.
Russia claimed last week that it destroyed a logistics hub in Odessa where a batch of foreign weapons was being stored. Ukraine, however, insisted that several Russian missiles struck residential buildings, killing civilians.
Both Russia and Ukraine have denied striking civilian targets and accused each other of war crimes.
Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.
