Crimea base bashed
Ukr. slams Russ. control center from air
Ukrainian forces blasted a Russian command center in occupied Crimea, according to reports Saturday.
The Ukrainian Air Force said it hit the Saki air field in western Crimea, the region illegally occupied by Russia in 2014.
“The Ukrainian Air Force is carrying out methodical work aimed at destroying the occupiers’ control system in Crimea,” Kyiv adviser Anton Gerashchenko posted on X Saturday. “Over the past few days, the [air force] has carried out a number of successful attacks on enemy targets in the . . . Crimea.”
The base is home to the 43rd Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which supports Russian troops in the region.
Ukraine last hit the Saki airfield, which Gerashchenko said “hosts the Nitka training complex for training deck aviation flight crews,” in 2022, destroying several Russian aircraft. The Russian Defense Ministry said its defenses intercepted 36 drones over Crimea on Friday and one over Krasnodar in southern Russia.
Also Saturday, a Russian missile strike killed at least 11 people in Pokrovsk, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region said.
“Eleven dead, including five children — these are the consequences for now of strikes on Pokrovsk district,” Vadym Filashkin said in a post on Telegram.
“The main blow was dealt to Pokrovsk and Rivne in the community of Myrnograd.”
Ukraine’s Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office shared new evidence Saturday that Russia attacked Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea.
The office showed fragments of the missiles, backing up claims made Friday by a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia was using weapons supplied by the Hermit Kingdom.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said this past week that the US believes the Kremlin has used North Korean missiles at least twice in recent weeks.