Damage resulted from “unprofessional use of anti-aircraft defence system”
Russia claims that the damage caused to international embassies, including Portugal’s, in an attack on the Ukrainian capital on Friday was the result of flaws in Ukrainian air defence. The country has also accused Portuguese media of “distorting events”.
The Portuguese diplomatic mission reported material damage during the Russian attack on a building housing the embassies of Portugal, Albania, Argentina, North Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as the diplomatic mission of the Palestinian Authority.
The Portuguese government said it had summoned the Russian ambassador in Lisbon to lodge a formal protest, with the Portuguese ministry of foreign affairs labelling what happened “absolutely unacceptable”.
In response, in a “comment on the incident with the Portuguese diplomatic mission in Kyiv” published at 20:19 last night on its Telegram account, the Russian Embassy in Portugal accused the Portuguese media of arousing “Russophobic feelings” and covering the events “in a distorted way”.
In the note, the Russian embassy states that Russian armed forces “exclusively attack military targets and military industry infrastructure” and points to Ukrainian air defence as responsible for the damage.
“The damage to the building housing the chancellery of the Portuguese diplomatic mission resulted from the unprofessional use of the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence system, which has repeatedly demonstrated its ‘effectiveness’,” it argues.
Quoting the Russian Ministry of Defence, the Russian diplomatic mission stated that, “on December 20, the command centre of the Ukrainian Security Service, the Luch engineering office, which is dedicated to the development and production of missiles, as well as batteries of the Patriot anti-aircraft defence system, were hit in the Ukrainian capital.
“It was the response to the Ukrainian bombardment of Russia’s Rostov region with US and British ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles on December 28,” it added.
The Russian mission also accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of “using civilian buildings as human shields” by placing “within city limits military installations and command centres, as well as anti-aircraft defence batteries.
“This leads to tragic consequences,” the statement concluded.
LUSA
