The facility was likely destroyed by "inept" air defenses, according to the Russian embassy in New Delhi

The Russian embassy in India has dismissed Ukrainian allegations of deliberately targeting an Indian pharmaceutical company's warehouse in Kiev, suggesting that an errant Ukrainian air-defense missile was likely to blame for the destruction of the facility.

The warehouse, belonging to Kusum Healthcare, was destroyed last Saturday during a Russian aerial strike on Ukrainian military industrial and infrastructure sites. Kiev was quick to blame the incident on Moscow. The Ukrainian mission in India claimed the warehouse contained "medicines meant for children and the elderly" and that it had been deliberately targeted by the Russian military.

The message was further amplified by the British ambassador to Ukraine, Martin Harris, who described the destruction of the warehouse as a part of a Russian "campaign of terror against Ukrainian civilians."

At the time, neither New Delhi nor Moscow responded to the allegations. The Russian embassy elaborated on the matter on Thursday, stating the facility was not among the targets of the strike.

"The Russian Armed Forces did not attack or plan to attack on April 12, 2025, Kusum Healthcare's pharmacy warehouse in the eastern part of Kiev," it said in a statement.

"On that day, Russian tactical aviation, strike unmanned aerial vehicles and missile forces hit an aviation plant of the Ukrainian military industrial complex, the infrastructure of a military airfield and armored vehicle repair and UAV assembly workshops at a completely different location," according to the embassy.

The warehouse was "most likely" destroyed by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile that fell on the installation and set it ablaze, the embassy suggested. "Similar cases have occurred previously whereby Ukrainian air defense interceptors failing to hit their targets fell in urban areas due to ineptly operated electronic warfare systems," the mission said.

The Russian military only strikes legitimate targets and has "never targeted civilian facilities," the embassy stressed. It has also become "customary" for Ukrainian forces to hide their "air defense systems, rocket launchers, artillery pieces and other military equipment" in densely populated urban areas to use civilians as human shields, the mission noted.