Russia says it hit Ukrainian drones in Crimea
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian authorities reported shooting down Ukrainian drones Saturday in Crimea, while Ukrainian officials said Russian forces pressed ahead with efforts to seize one of the few cities in eastern Ukraine not already under their control. The Russian military also kept up its strikes in Ukraine’s north and south.
In Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian authorities said local air defenses shot down a drone above the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. It was the second drone incident at the headquarters in three weeks and followed explosions at a Russian airfield and ammunition depot on the peninsula this month.
Oleg Kryuchkov, an aide to Crimea’s governor, also said Saturday that “attacks by small drones” triggered air-defense systems in western Crimea.
“Air defense systems successfully hit all targets over the territory over Crimea on Saturday morning. There are no casualties or material damage,” his boss, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Telegram.
Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said on Telegram that the city’s air-defense systems were called into action again late Saturday.
The incidents underlined Russian forces’ vulnerability in Crimea. A drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters on July 31 injured five people and forced the cancellation of observances of Russia’s Navy Day. This week, a Russian ammunition depot in Crimea was hit by an explosion. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an airbase on Crimea.
Ukrainian authorities have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility. But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alluded to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines after the blasts in Crimea.
Meanwhile, fighting in southern Ukrainian areas just north of Crimea has stepped up in recent weeks as Ukrainian forces try to drive Russian forces out of cities they have occupied since early in the 6-month-old war.
A Russian missile attack wounded 12 people, including three children, and damaged houses and an apartment block Saturday in the town of Voznesensk in the Mykolaiv region, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said. Two of the children were in serious condition and the governor said one had lost an eye.
A Ukrainian airstrike, meanwhile, hit targets in Melitopol, the largest Russian-controlled city in the Zaporizhzhia region, 65 miles north of Crimea, according to Ukrainian and Russia-installed local officials.
The Ukrainian military Saturday said it had destroyed a prized Russian radar system and other equipment stationed in occupied areas in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. It was not clear if this was the strike on Melitopol.
“Tonight, there were powerful explosions in Melitopol, which the whole city heard,” the Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Ferodov, said.