President Joe Biden’s administration has suggested that contrary to the footage shared by the Russian military and many other images posted on social media showing US-made military vehicles destroyed in the Belgorod Region, the equipment used by Ukrainian militants in their latest attack on Russian soil wasn’t likely supplied by Washington or its Western allies.
“We’ve seen some of the reports circulating on social media and elsewhere making claims that US-supplied weapons were used in these attacks,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday in Washington. “I will say that we’re skeptical at this time of the veracity of these reports.”
Miller suggested that footage of the destroyed vehicles might be fake.
“We’ve seen a lot of reports on social media and fuzzy pictures on social media and a lot of kind of armchair intelligence analysts making claims,” he said. “We’re skeptical that they’re accurate.”
The images appear to clearly show the disabled US-made equipment, including Humvees and at least one MaxxPro MRAP armored fighting vehicle. Nevertheless, when questioned on why US officials haven’t made a definitive assessment, Miller stood by his claim.
“We don’t have perfect clarity on the information,” he told reporters. “We’re looking at the same pictures you see, the same fuzzy images, and at this time, we are skeptical of their veracity.”
Monday’s attack by a Ukrainian saboteur group targeted the Belgorod district of Grayvoron, where at least one resident was killed and several others injured. The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday published an aerial footage purporting to show its destruction of the Ukrainian militant group, which left US-made armor on fire.
Another higher quality video showed multiple damaged and destroyed US-made vehicles scattered around in the aftermath of the attack. The Kiev regime has resorted to launching “terrorist actions” against civilian targets after its forces suffered defeat in Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine), the ministry said.
US officials denied any responsibility for attacks in Russian territory. “We do not encourage or enable strikes inside Russia, and we’ve made that clear, but as we’ve also said, it’s up to Ukraine to decide how to conduct this war,” Miller said on Monday.
The Pentagon’s press secretary, Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder, said the US government hadn’t approved any transfers of equipment to paramilitary organizations outside the Ukrainian armed forces. He added that US officials “regularly communicate to Ukraine” that Washington’s security assistance must be used only inside the country to defend its sovereignty.
Like Miller, Ryder tried to cast doubt on the footage of US-made armored vehicles. “When you see imagery like that – you know, again, something we’ll look into –I don’t know if it’s true or not in terms of the veracity of that imagery.”
Russian troops destroy Western-supplied vehicles in Belgorod Region (VIDEO)
RT
Several American-made armored cars were among the seven vehicles documented to have been destroyed on Monday, when a unit of Ukrainian militants was defeated after trespassing into Russia’s border region of Belgorod.
Photos and video taken by the Russian military in the aftermath of the battle showed several abandoned, damaged or destroyed vehicles used by the Ukrainian force.
Two M1151A1 Hummvee armored cars can be seen stuck in what appears to be a bomb crater, showing combat damage. Another Hummvee, the lightly armored cargo version still in desert tan color, sat on the side of the road with its tires shot out.
Two of the M1224 MaxxPro armored vehicles were apparently left behind, one near a treeline and another inside a warehouse. The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle is made by the US company Navistar Defense in cooperation with the Israeli Plasan Sasa.
Earlier in the day, the Russian Defense Ministry said that “over 70 Ukrainian terrorists, four armored combat vehicles, and five pickup trucks had been destroyed” in the Belgorod clash, with the remaining intruders pushed back into Ukraine and “completely eliminated” by artillery fire.
Moscow described the raid as an attempt to terrorize civilians to distract from a military defeat in Artyomovsk – called Bakhmut by Ukrainians – a key city in Donbass taken by the Russian military and ‘Wagner Group’ forces over the weekend. One civilian was killed and twelve were injured in the incursion.
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