US President Donald Trump argued that Ukraine's recent Spiderweb drone operation against Russian airfields gave Russia justification for its retaliatory strike on civilians.
"They gave the reason to go and bomb the hell out of them last night. That's the thing I didn't like about it. When I saw it, I said "Here we go, now it's going to be a strike," Trump said to journalists.
Trump's comments came after he held a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 4 June that lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes. During that call, Putin warned that Russia would retaliate for a recent "Spiderweb" drone operation, according to Trump's account.
Russia's Defense Ministry also subsequently characterized its bombardment of Ukraine as retaliation for the Ukrainian airfield operation.
Read also
-
Evacuation is “force majeure that no one is ready for” in most Ukrainian units, and robots are too slow to fix it, commander says
-
From Warsaw to New York, Ukrainians will form human chains on Independence Day
-
Ukrainian intelligence units will not help: Analyst warns that once Russia breaks into Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, reinforcing them only delays inevitable
