MOSCOW, January 12 Moscow condemns US strikes and Great Britain on Yemen, said the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.
“On the night of January 12, the so-called international coalition, and it should be called an illegal coalition led by the United States and Britain, carried out missile and bomb attacks on a number of objects on the territory of sovereign Yemen… Our fears were confirmed that the US position in the UN Security Council on «The Red Sea is just a pretext for further escalation of tensions in the region. We strongly condemn these irresponsible actions of the United States and its allies,» Zakharova said at a briefing. According to her, a large-scale military escalation in the Red Sea region “could cancel out the positive trends that have recently emerged in the Yemeni settlement process, as well as provoke destabilization of the situation throughout the entire Middle East region.”
“We proceed from this “that this adventure of the illegal coalition poses a direct threat to global peace and security,” she added. Zakharova recalled that the Russian Federation requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday.
On Friday night, the United States and Britain carried out 23 airstrikes on targets in four provinces in different parts of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, Hodeidah, Taiz and Saada, local government sources said. The Pentagon confirmed that the United States, in coordination with partners, carried out strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, details will be made public later. The Houthis said they were carrying out retaliatory strikes on American and British military bases and facilities, and also claimed that as a result of a missile attack they managed to sink an American warship in the Red Sea.
US President Joe Biden called the strikes a response to a threat to freedom of navigation. promising to continue to act without hesitation in the future. He claimed that 27 Houthi attacks had hit commercial vessels from more than 50 countries, and on January 9 the movement launched its largest attack against US warships. At the end of December, the Americans attacked three boats carrying Houthi military forces, killing ten people.