On alert after drone attack

No civilian infrastructure damaged, residents told to remain calm. OUR AIR DEFENCE FORCES ARE WORKING RIGHT NOW, SAYS GOVERNOR

Ukraine’s Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula was targeted by a drone attack on Tuesday, Kremlin-installed authorities said, adding that Moscow’s forces there were “on alert”.

The strike came as Kyiv claimed another territorial victory and just days after Moscow said it was strengthening its position on the Crimean peninsula.

“There is an attack with drones,” the governor of the Sevastopol administrative region in Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on Telegram.

“Our air defence forces are working right now.”

He said two drones had “already been shot down”.

Razvozhayev said no civilian infrastructure had been damaged

and called on residents to “remain calm”.

Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 after nationwide pro

democracy demonstrations that led to the ouster of Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president.

It used the peninsula, which

hosts several important Russian military bases, as a launching pad for its February invasion of Ukraine.

But in recent months, Ukrainian forces have been pushing a counteroffensive in the south towards Crimea and earlier this month, reclaimed Kherson, the capital of the region bordering the annexed peninsula.

There have been several explosions at or near Russian military installations in Crimea since February, including a coordinated drone attack on a key Russian naval port at Sevastopol in October.

Last week, the Moscow-aligned governor of the territory, Sergei Aksyonov, said authorities were strengthening positions on the peninsula.

“Fortification work is being carried out, with the aim of guaranteeing the security of all Crimeans,” he said.

Ukraine said on Tuesday it had recaptured almost the entire region of an isolated peninsula off the Black Sea, where fighting is ongoing.

“We are restoring full control over the region. We have three settlements left on the Kinburn Split to officially no longer be a region at war,” said Mykolaiv regional governor Vitaly Kim on social media. –

Picture: AFP UNDER COVER. A local resident carries a sheet of plywood destined to cover a broken window of a residential building after a recent attack in Chasiv Yar yesterday, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.