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Pokrovsk strike follows Sevastopol beach attack
Summary
A retrospective on 24 June 2024, when Russian ballistic missiles hit Pokrovsk a day after Russia blamed the United States for the Sevastopol missile attack.
What did the sequence of strikes in the days up to 24 June 2024 show about the pace of the war? On that date, Russian Iskander-M ballistic missiles hit Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast, killing at least four people and injuring 40 others.
The strike came a day after the Sevastopol missile attack in Crimea. On 23 June 2024, Ukrainian forces launched an ATACMS missile bombardment on Sevastopol, and missile fragments hit a beach. As reported at the time, five people were killed and at least 153 were injured, 27 of them children. Russia's ministry of defence said it held the United States responsible and vowed that there would be a response. Russian authorities gave a lower toll of four dead and around 151 injured.
Russia's account was that a US-provided Ukrainian ATACMS missile had been shot down by a Russian air-defence system and that its fragments fell over the beach. The submunitions mostly exploded in the sea and along the shore at Uchkuyivka and Lyubimovka, on the northern outskirts of Sevastopol.
A run of exchanges
On 22 June 2024, Russia had launched missile and drone strikes across Ukraine, injuring two people and damaging energy infrastructure. Ukraine said it shot down 12 of 16 missiles and all 13 drones.
Taken together, the three days ran from strikes on energy infrastructure, through the Crimean beach attack and Moscow's public attribution of responsibility to Washington, to the ballistic missile hit on Pokrovsk. The Pokrovsk strike did not come with any stated link to the Russian ministry of defence's vow of a response, and none should be assumed. What is clear is the toll: at least four dead and 40 injured in a Donetsk Oblast city, within a day of the Sevastopol casualties.
