Last updated: 11:21.
Ukrainian officials said on Friday they fired missiles at a Russian military airfield on the Crimean peninsula that the Russian air force uses to launch strikes on its territory, continuing a series of attacks against Moscow’s forces in territory it considers to be under Kiev’s control.
In recent months, Kiev has stepped up long-range missile strikes in Crimea, forcing the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol to move its warships to safer ports.
Ukraine’s civil service confirmed the attack on the Sagi airbase in western Crimea and said it was assessing the damage.
It was an air base, he explained, “used by Russia to control airspace, especially the Black Sea,” and “to carry out airstrikes on the territory of Ukraine.” It was not specified what type of missiles were used.
The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to comment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky referred to the base strikes in his nightly speech and thanked “our soldiers who are attacking Russian bases (…) in the occupied territories” “for your precision”.
Nearly two-and-a-half years after the outbreak of war, Ukrainian forces recently asserted that they attacked several Russian air defense systems deployed in Crimea, including the S-300 and S-400 arrays.
On Tuesday, Kiev said it had severely damaged Russia’s last ferry carrying railcars from Russia’s Krasnodar region to Crimea, a major blow to Moscow’s supply of forces on the peninsula. He said the boat was being used for military purposes, and added that the strike forced the Kremlin to order the withdrawal of Russian naval vessels from the Sea of Azov.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces claim to have destroyed or damaged 27 Russian warships in the Black Sea and Crimean waters.
On the Eastern Front, however, President Zelensky last night admitted that the Ukrainian armed forces continue to be under great pressure from Russian offensives. The head of state said the situation in Pokrovsk, Donetsk region in particular was “difficult” and was being analyzed by the military leadership.
He noted that “everything” must be done to strengthen defenses there as it has become a “hotbed of Russian attacks”.
Ukrainian drone strikes in Bryansk and Belgorod
Russia, for its part, said its air defense intercepted 12 of Ukraine’s remote-controlled unmanned aerial systems in about an hour on Friday night in the Bryansk region.
“Thanks to our brave defenders, all air targets were intercepted and destroyed,” the governor of the Bryansk region, Alexander Bogamas, assured by telegram. He said there was no loss of life or major damage.
Vychislav Klatkov, the governor of Ukraine’s neighboring Belgorod, said three drone strikes and shelling had broken windows and damaged buildings.
Ukrainian armed forces have been conducting almost daily attacks on Russian border areas, particularly in the Belgorod region, in recent months.
The wave of attacks prompted the Kremlin to order an operation in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in May to expand the so-called “neutrality zone” and end Ukrainian strikes on Russian communities. Russian military officials confirmed that several of those communities had been occupied. However, Ukrainian officials say the situation has stabilized.
Earlier this week, Mr. Klatkov and other officials announced restrictions on access to parts of Belgorod to prevent further casualties from Ukrainian attacks.
Russian drone strikes in Dnipro, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kiev
Accordingly, Ukraine also announced that its air defense systems shot down 4 invasive unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) in an attack carried out by Russia between Friday night and early Saturday morning.
“All targets in the Dnipro, Poltava, Kharkiv and Kyiv regions were shot down by the Ukrainian Defense Forces,” the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement.
Source: RES