The false claim is aimed solely at diverting attention from Russia's terrorist missile and drone attack on Kyiv earlier on Wednesday, Andrii Kovalov, Spokesperson for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told Ukrinform.
"The Russian military and political leadership have traditionally resorted to staged incidents and attacks against its own citizens in an attempt to distract the international community from yet another act of terrorism in Kyiv, where dozens of civilians were killed and injured as a result of a massive Russian attack on residential neighborhoods," Kovalov said.
According to him, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine officially states that the Ukrainian Defense Forces did not carry out any strikes against the civilian vehicle in question and that all accusations made by the aggressor state are entirely false and fabricated.
"The Armed Forces of Ukraine strike only legitimate military targets and do not conduct military operations against civilians. We call on our international partners and the entire global community to firmly condemn yet another groundless accusation by the Russian Federation and to provide an appropriate legal and political assessment of the deliberate and brutal terrorist killing of Ukrainian civilians committed by the Russian aggressor during today's massive attack on Ukraine and its capital, Kyiv," the General Staff Spokesperson said.
On July 2, Russian state propaganda outlets circulated a false report claiming that "a Ukrainian Armed Forces drone attacked a passenger bus traveling from Minsk to Anapa" at the Krasny Kamen checkpoint in Russia's Bryansk region.
It should be noted that this is not the first time Russian propaganda has spread false claims about an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on a bus. The General Staff had previously refuted Russian allegations that a Ukrainian drone struck a bus carrying a children's football team in the Bryansk region. At the time, it was reported that the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) had every reason to believe that the attack on the bus carrying Belarusian citizens in Russia's Bryansk region had been orchestrated as a special operation by Russian intelligence services.
Read also: Russia could resort to provocations if war front nears Moscow and St. Petersburg – The GuardianAnalysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) had suggested that Moscow may have exploited the earlier attack on the bus carrying the children's football team in the Bryansk region to amplify its information campaign, drawing Belarus into the narrative.
As reported by Ukrinform, the death toll from Russia's overnight attack on Kyiv on July 2 has risen to 21.