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Friday March 29, 2024

Drone shot down at Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters

August 21, 2022

Ag AFP

MOSCOW: A drone was shot down over the headquarters of Russia´s Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea on Saturday, a local official said.

“The drone was shot down just above the fleet headquarters” in the city of Sevastopol, city governor Mikhail Razvojaev wrote on Telegram, blaming the attempt on Ukrainian forces.

“It fell on the roof and caught fire,” he said, adding that there was no major damage or victims.

It was the second assault of its kind against the fleet headquarters in less than a month, after a drone attack on July 31 in its courtyard wounded five people and led to the cancellation of planned Fleet Day celebrations.

It was also the latest attack to target Russian military infrastructure in Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that Moscow seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Also on Saturday, Konstantin Ivashchenko, appointed by pro-Russian forces as mayor of the port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, was the target of an assassination attempt, according to Russian news agencies.

An explosion rocked his car as it drove past a zoo, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted a police source as saying.

Ivashchenko “was not injured,” the source added.

Earlier on Saturday, air defence systems were activated in Evpatoria in western Crimea.

Russian forces on Thursday shot down a drone near an air base in Sevastopol, just two days after explosions ripped through a military base and ammunition depot in Crimea.

In early August, a blast at the Saki air base killed one person and wounded several others.Russia’s RIA and Tass news agencies, citing a local official in Crimea, said it appeared Russian anti-aircraft forces had been in action near the western Crimean port of Yevpatoriya on Friday night. Video posted by a Russian website showed what appeared to be a ground-to-air missile hitting a target. Reuters was unable immediately to confirm the video’s veracity.Tass cited a local official as saying Russian anti-aircraft forces knocked down six Ukrainian drones sent to attack the town of Nova Kakhovka, east of the city of Kherson. Ukraine says retaking Kherson is one of its main priorities. Separately, an official in Crimea said defences there had downed an unspecified number of drones over the city of Sevastopol.

“The Ukrainian armed forces treated the Russians to a magical evening,” said Seriy Khlan, a member of Kherson’s regional council disbanded by Russian occupation forces.

The night before, multiple explosions had been reported in Crimea - which Moscow seized in 2014 - including near Sevastopol, headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, as well as at Kerch near a huge bridge to Russia.

Inside Russia, two villages had been evacuated after explosions at an ammunition dump in Belgorod province, more than 100-km from territory controlled by Ukrainian forces.

Meanwhile, 12 Ukrainians, including three children, were wounded on Saturday after Russian forces attacked an apartment block and several houses in the city of Voznesensk, near a key nuclear plant, prosecutors said.

“According to preliminary information, 12 people including three children were injured. Two children are in a serious condition,” the prosecutor´s office said on Telegram.

Regional governor Vitaly Kim had earlier said on Telegram that nine people were injured, including four children aged between three and 17, and were “all in serious condition”.

Voznesensk is located about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the nuclear plant at Pivdennoukrainsk, Ukraine´s second largest, and 70 kilometres from Mykolaiv, the regional capital.

A Russian strike in the 30 kilometre zone around the plant “is another cynical act of nuclear terrorism by Russia”, Ukraine´s nuclear operator Energoatom wrote on Telegram.

“It cannot be ruled out that this missile was fired in the direction of the Pivdenukrynsk power station which the Russian military already tried to seize in early March.”

The strikes hit an apartment building and several homes in the city, which is home to 30,000 people, the emergency services said on Facebook, showing a badly damaged building.

The region, at the forefront of the war, suffers regular strikes.

“Voznesensk. The terrorist country called Russia hit a residential building,” presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.

The Ukrainian army meanwhile said they had downed four Kalibr high-precision sea-launched cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea near the central city of Dnipro.