The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it summoned a senior Ukrainian diplomat to protest a deadly drone strike on a bus carrying a Belarusian youth soccer team.
Belarusian and Russian authorities accused Ukraine’s military of targeting the vehicle as it traveled through Russia’s western border region of Bryansk on Wednesday. A woman accompanying the team was killed, and six others, including four teenagers, were wounded.
Following the incident, federal investigators in Russia launched a terrorism probe. Russia’s Foreign Ministry denounced the attack as “another monstrous crime.”
Ukraine has denied it targeted the bus and dismissed the allegations as a “provocation.”
Belarusian state media reported that officials handed Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires, Ivan Novitsky, a formal note of protest, “decisively” condemning the incident as an “inhumane act of terrorism.”
