MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops never stop trying to inflict irreparable damage on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), having attacked its infrastructure for the fifth time, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

She recalled that in a period from July 17 to 20, two foreign-flagged vessels with international crews came under a "targeted terrorist attack" with the use of drones while being loaded at the CPC maritime terminal in Yuzhnaya Ozereika. "The hulls sustained damage, but the vessels remain afloat. There were no injuries or fatalities. No oil spill has occurred," she stated.

"There is no doubt that the Nazi Kiev regime is behind this attack. This was the fifth act of aggression against the company’s civilian facilities enjoying protection of international law. Ukrainian militants never stop trying to cause irreparable damage to the CTC, which comprises largest enterprises of the energy sector of Russia, Kazakhstan, the United States, and a number of Western European countries," she stressed.

"That is why deliberate strikes against facilities and civilian vessels in the consortium’s maritime terminal waters constitute an attack on the interests of its member countries. Some of them spare no means to fund large-scale military and financial assistance to Ukraine. But the Vladimir Zelensky regime cares little about economic damage done by Ukrainian troops to its American and European allies. The Kiev junta, like the snake in the well-known fable, mercilessly bites the hand that feeds it," the Russian diplomat noted.

According to Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry expresses solidarity with the Kazakh foreign ministry "in its strong condemnation of this crime against a civilian facility" and the actions by "all parties that helped to plan and carry it out." "We view this attack as another evidence that Kiev is seeking to further destabilize the situation on global oil markets," she stressed. "Ensuring global energy stability, as well as respectful attitude toward foreign partners, particularly those from Kazakhstan, with whom the Kiev regime allegedly wants to develop mutually beneficial and friendly relations, is nothing but empty rhetoric for it."

In this context, the Russian side calls on the international community to "give an appropriate assessment of the Zelensky regime’s another war crime," she said. "We will consider the lack of an adequate response as a sign of acquiescence and approval of Kiev's policy of escalating terror."