TOKYO: Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky on Tuesday condemned Monday’s deadly Russian missile strike on a large commercial facility in central Ukraine as a “very brutal attack” on civilian infrastructure that was “pure and simple terrorism.”

In an interview with Jiji Press, Korsunsky claimed that the Russian military used a Soviet-made missile with low accuracy in the attack.

“That means it was not even initially designed to attack any military infrastructure, but was intended to attack civilian buildings,” he said.

The latest attack in the city of Kremenchuk in the province of Poltava, left at least 18 people dead and nearly 60 injured. It followed a missile attack on a residential building in Kyiv on Sunday.

Korsunsky argued Russia is trying to throw Ukrainian civilians into a panic by striking them across Ukraine.

As the grueling war in Ukraine has entered its fifth month, the ambassador said his country will be able to fight the war until the end “with support of most developed nations.”

He welcomed the pledge by the Group of Seven major countries at their summit in Germany to “continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

The ambassador suggested that large-scale combat could end by the end of this year.

“We hope Russia will be economically exhausted, politically isolated enough to understand that what they are doing is pure terrorism, not war,” Korsunsky said. “So that has (a) time limit. I don’t think it takes years. I think it takes months.”

JIJI Press