At least two ethnic Greeks were killed and another six including one child were injured in the outskirts of the village Sartana in eastern Ukraine, the Foreign Ministry in Athens announced early Saturday afternoon, confirming media reports a little earlier.
Initially media reported of three dead.
According to the correspondent of state broadcaster ERT in the area, the airstrike took place around 2 o’ clock Saturday noon and at least two houses were hit.
Sartana is a village with mostly ethnic Greek population, located some 10 km away from the city of Mariupol.
In mid-February, two ethnic Greeks were killed and another two were injured in Sartana during an incident with Ukrainian soldiers that had no political motive, though.
According to the Foreign Ministry statement the ethnic Greeks were killed and injured during Russian airstrikes in the night from Friday to Saturday.
“Greece expresses its disgust and unequivocally condemns the bombing of civilians by a Russian aircraft,” the statement stressed.
It added that by order of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikos Dendias, the General Secretary Themistoklis Demiris made a strong protest action by telephone to the Russian Ambassador in Athens and summoned him to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tomorrow, Sunday.
It is recalled that the Minister of Foreign Affairs had urged his Russian counterpart, during their meeting in Moscow on February 18, on the issue of the need to protect the Greek ethnic community in the eastern Ukraine.
There are some 100,000 ethic Greeks in the area, mostly around the city of Mariupol.
Dendias said two days ago that there was a plan for the evacuation of the ethnic Greek community there, however, there are no reports of implementation of such a plan, so far.
*thumbnail picture: random from internet from War in Ukraine.
Amazing how all the usual , US ,UK ,NATO hatters have all gone quiet , let’s see how your EU rapid reaction force plays out from this point , led by the Germans who are so far up the Russians petrochemical shit chute they could only give some helmets, lest we forget.
Turkey and Germany initially refused to sanction on Russia. Turkey would not close the strait, now they close the strait. Germany would not sell it arms (only helmets) and now it sells it arms. My how the tone has changed.
NATO partners must be reliable and in tune with laws and a moral community.
If a superpower can not get away with violating international law, and we witness the consequences, surely any nation seeking to break the law should think twice about testing the inevitable consequences.