Foreign Ministry statement on Kiev’s latest drone attack targeting Russian civilians

The Kiev regime is relentless in its terror attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure in numerous Russian regions, including Moscow.

According to the Defence Ministry, from May 20 to 8 am on May 23, the number of aerial attacks amounted to multiples of what it used to be with 788 strikes by fixed-wing UAVs and Western-made missiles targeting Russian territory outside the area of the special military operation. Our air defence forces destroyed 776 drones and missiles, though unfortunately, 12 UAVs made it through our defences and hit their targets.

Casualties have been reported. On May 22, an attack on the village of Panteleymonovka, the Donetsk People’s Republic, wounded eight people. On the same day, a drone strike in the Vasilyevsky Municipal District, Zaporozhye Region, killed a woman born in 1990 and injured four children aged 10, 9, 8, and 1. On the night of May 23, a downed UAV triggered fire in an industrial zone of Yelets, Lipetsk Region, injuring eight people. Additionally, the Ukrainian forces launched two HIMARS missiles on civilian targets in the city of Lgov, Kursk Region, also resulting in casualties, including two children.

Notably, even after the Ukrainian forces had been ousted from the Kursk Region, they keep trying to infiltrate our territory and launch drone, long-range artillery, and missile attacks.

Under these circumstances, the President was compelled to make a decision on establishing a security buffer zone on adjacent territory in order to minimise the ability of the Ukrainian forces to infiltrate and to attack our border regions using various munitions.

The latest barbaric terrorist attacks by the Kiev regime were carried out in an attempt to thwart direct Russia-Ukraine talks facilitated by the US Administration, which are designed to settle the conflict definitively. They also appear intended to derail the implementation of initial agreements reached in Istanbul on May 16, including a massive prisoner exchange.

These attacks are part of the strategy pursued by Ukraine’s party of war, which also includes violations of energy and Easter ceasefires that Russia has strictly observed, as well as the unilateral ceasefire declared by us during the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory celebrations.

Without a doubt, Russia will deliver a matching response to barrages of terrorist attacks carried out by the Kiev regime. Unlike the Ukrainian side, our targets will be strictly limited to military facilities and defence industry plants.

To reiterate, our fundamental commitment to a constructive search for a peaceful settlement through dialogue remains unchanged.